The Election Commission on Thursday decided against cancelling or postponing Rajya Sabha elections to four seats from Karnataka on 11 June, on the ground that the sting operations were not evidence enough to prove that money power was used to influence the voting MLAs.
The Commission is not satisfied that the whole electoral process, now in progress, for the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha by the members of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly is so vitiated by the...allegations that it should not be permitted to continue.The EC order
The five contesting candidates to fill the 4 seats from the State of Karnataka are:
- Jairam Ramesh, INC
- Oscar Farnandes, INC
- KC Ramamurthy, INC
- BM Farook, JDS
- Nirmala Sitharaman, BJP
The Commission also said:
- “such punishment (of cancelling or postponing of polls) to the state legislative assembly and the people of Karnataka would not be commensurate with the demeaning act of few members of its legislative assembly.”
- The order also said that the demand for cancellation of polls by drawing an analogy biennial polls to the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand in 2012, is not valid for the facts in both the cases are different.
- The EC order said the Commission at the same time “cannot ignore to take cognisance of certain illegal activities” as appeared in media including the TV channels.
- It will also as DoPT to instruct the CBI to take up the matter for proper investigation.
The sting operation played on Times Now and India Today TV showed MLAs negotiating money in exchange for their votes in the elections. While the JD(S) had been demanding cancelling the polls, Congress and BJP were opposed to change in the poll schedule.
(With agency inputs.)
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