Karnataka voter ID cards recovery row: Congress delegation to meet EC today

A delegation of senior Congress leaders will meet the Election Commission officials around 10:30 am at Nirvachan Sadan in the national capital on Friday.

Bengaluru: A day after the Election Commission deferred a decision on the recovery of nearly 10,000 voter ID cards from a flat in Rajrajeshwari Nagar Assembly seat of poll-bound Karnataka, a delegation of Congress leaders will meet the poll panel officials on Friday.

According to reports, the delegation including senior Congress leaders will meet the Election Commission officials around 10:30 am at Nirvachan Sadan in the national capital. 

The poll panel, while deferring its decision on the ID cards recovery case, also sought fresh information from the state election machinery.

Highly-placed sources in the poll panel said that prima facie it seems that most of the voter ID cards recovered were "genuine". 

However, the reason as to why they were found in the flat is still being ascertained, they said.

The national poll watchdog, the sources said, deliberated on the issue and decided to seek more information from the State Election Commission before arriving at a conclusion.

If the EC finds that a fraud was involved, it could even cancel election to the constituency. 

Even in that case, if the EC is able to ascertain that attempt was made to stop people from voting, it can cancel the poll.

"Now we have to ensure that genuine voters can cast their votes using voter slips distributed to electors. Also, the machinery has to ensure that no voter is intimidated," an official had yesterday said.

Nearly 10,000 voter ID cards were seized from a flat in Jalahalli in RR Nagar on Tuesday. Thousands of counterfoils of Form 6 used for inclusion of names in electoral rolls were seized too.

The flying squad that reached the spot on a tip-off found a few pamphlets featuring sitting Congress MLA N Muniratna that led to BJP and JD(S) demanding the poll be countermanded. 

However, it turned out later that the house belonged to BJP leader Manjula Nanjamari and the tenant Rakesh, also a BJP worker, is her close relative. 

This had prompted the Congress to point fingers at the saffron party.

(With Agency inputs)