Political blame-game after EC seizes 9,746 voters ID cards & counterfoils from a Bengaluru residence

The spokesman of the Congress party Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged that the flat where the voter IDs were found belonged to a BJP leader.

Bengaluru: The Election Commission on the wee hours of Wednesday filed a First Information Report (FIR) on finding counterfoils and 9,746 voters ID cards in the Rajarajeshwari Nagar Assembly seat in the southern suburb. "An FIR is being registered after nearly 9,746 voter cards were found in a flat in Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency along with around one lakh counterfoils resembling acknowledgement slips used for addition of names into electoral rolls were found," the state's Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told reporters here on late Tuesday night. On preliminary verification, the voter cards were found to be genuine, while the counterfoils were to be verified through investigation, Kumar said. Five laptops and one printer were also found in the apartment, he added. "Further investigation will be conducted into the matter and will be closely monitored by the EC," he said. Three observers from the poll panel were visiting the flat in the constituency, which has a total of 4,35,439 voters, Kumar said. Along with Kumar, the District Election Officer and the city's civic body Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao, the city Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar had visited the location where the voter cards were found. The spokesman of the Congress party Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged that the flat where the voter IDs were found belonged to a BJP leader. "BJP enacted this drama in an apartment belonging to their own leader Manjula Nanjamari. She has rented the apartment to her son who contested the 2015 BBMP (Bengaluru civic body) elections on a BJP ticket. Apartment was raided not by police or EC but by BJP workers," Surjewala alleged at a press conference on the early hours of Wednesday here. On the other hand, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urged the poll panel to countermand the May 12 Assembly poll in the constituency, terming it a conspiracy by the ruling Congress to rig the election. "The BJP demands countermanding of elections in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in light of latest revelations of tens of thousands of fake voter IDs and empty packets of hard currency. This is Congress conspiracy to rig election in the face of their imminent defeat," tweeted Union Human Resource Development Minister and the party's in-charge for state polls Prakash Javadekar.