Bypolls will not be free and fair: Ex-MP Ugrappa

Senior Congress leader V S Ugrappa cast his aspersions over Election Commission of India (EC) conducting a free and fair bypolls in 15 assembly constituencies of Karnataka.

Speaking to selected media persons here on Tuesday, Ugrappa said the EC's advocate Rakesh Dewedi made a statement in the Supreme Court in favour of the 15 disqualified MLAs though the Election Commission was not part of the writ petition.

“This suo-moto action of EC makes one to suspect if the election conducting body is working unbiased,” he said and added that EC has no business to meddle with the order of speaker.

The State Election Commission officials issued a statement in Bengaluru stating that disqualified MLAs are not eligible to contest the election, however, in Supreme Court, the EC make a completely contradicting submission of them not having any objections against those 15 MLAs contesting elections.

He charged that Union government has turned the EC into its puppet.

Another incident that made Congress leader doubt the integrity of the election process is the move of current State Assembly Speaker, who in spite of not receiving any notice from the Supreme Court has hired a Tushar Metha, Solicitor General of India, to represent the 15 disqualified MLAs.

He charged State and Central government of misusing the system to ensure that disqualified MLAs, who helped the BJP in pulling down a majority government in State, re-contest the election.

Ugrappa, a lawyer by profession, said the former speaker had disqualified the rebel MLAs on strong grounds.

Haven’t disowned

Ugrappa claimed that the Congress party has not disowned MLA D K Shivakumar, after All India Congress Committee President Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh met only P Chidambaram in Tihar Jail and not Shivakumar, who is also lodged in the same jail.

“As per the jail manual, the visitors are allowed to meet only one person at a time. So the party high command could not meet Shivakumar,” he said and added that both Party and Congress Legislative party is completely behind the loyal party worker.