Sringeri recounting row: Siddaramaiah cries foul, alleges 'vote dacoity' by BJP

The chief minister felt that the election declaration should've been left to the court. 'Instead of that, the returning officer has only declared the result without the observer’s permission', he said.

Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday accused the BJP of “criminal conspiracy” and “vote dacoity” in Sringeri Assembly constituency, where BJP candidate DN Jeevaraj has been declared as the winner by 52 votes in the recounting.

In the 2023 Assembly elections, Congress' TD Rajegowda secured 59,171 votes as against 58,970 for BJP’s Jeeveraj, and won by a margin of 201 votes.

Addressing a press conference, Siddaramaiah said: “In the previous Assembly elections (2023), Rajegowda secured 569 votes in the postal ballots, while Jeevaraj got 692. After recounting, 255 votes for Rajegowda have been disqualified and he has secured only 314 postal votes (690 for Jeevaraj). BJP has engineered ‘vote chori’ through a criminal conspiracy. The 250 votes Rajegowda secured have been systematically tampered. This is vote dacoity.”

Recollecting that there was a BJP government at both the centre and state levels in 2023, Siddaramaiah said the "vote tampering" has occurred through officials.

Noting that the ballots counted as valid in 2023 in the presence of election officials and agents of all parties were later invalidated during the recount, Siddaramaiah said: “There were variations in ink markings on some of the rejected ballots and said these required forensic examination before any result is declared.”

The chief minister felt that the election declaration should've been left to the court. “Instead of that, the returning officer has only declared the result without the observer’s permission. If any official is guilty, they must be punished.”

In another press conference, KPCC Vice President B L Shankar noted that the High Court had directed that there should be recounting of 279 votes that had been invalidated in 2023. He noted that during the recounting of these 279 votes, two votes had come to Rajegowda, while one had been cast in favour of Jeevaraj.

“But when they went to recount the votes that had been invalidated in 2023, there was a problem. A ballot paper is considered only when the election agent approves it. But the votes that were valid earlier are now in an invalidated state now. We don’t know how this happened.”

Shankar noted that 257 votes, which were cast in Rajegowda’s favour, now had “double marking.”

The KPCC has accused Vedamurthy, the election officer of DN Jeevaraj and the then District Collector of Chikkamagaluru Ramesh, of "conspiring" to invalidate the ballot papers received by Rajegowda.

Rajegowda, reacting to the row, said, "I have faced injustice. I won by 201 votes but they have conspired to defeat me. This is unconstitutional. I am confident of getting justice through the election commission and the courts."