BENGALURU: The decision to whether countermand the Rajarajeshwarinagar assembly polls or not now lies with the Election Commission of India with the Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) Chandra Bhushan Kumar submitting a report on the seizure of 9,896 voter ID (or EPIC) cards from a flat in Jalahalli in the RR Nagar constituency. Addressing the media on Thursday, the Chief Electoral Officer-Karnataka Sanjiv Kumar said the special officer designated, DEC Chandra Bhushan Kumar had placed the report before the EC and same was under active consideration.
“The DEC visited the spot and took feedback from all the stakeholders. It requires a lot of time to check each EPIC card with the actual cardholder. A decision will be taken early by the EC in appropriate time as probably things were given to the seized EPIC card holders which is a very serious matter,” Kumar said when asked when the ECI would take a decision on countermanding the poll in the constituency.
Kumar said this was the second FIR which is a major case based on the EPIC cards and other materials seized from the flat. The first complaint was with regard to the alleged group clash between Congress workers and the BJP and JD(S) workers, he said. “As of now, about 800 EPIC cards were thoroughly verified and all are original, but not new cards. All these were issued from 2012 to 2017. So that it requires huge time to complete the investigation. It may be prejudicial to the investigation if more details are provided,” he said.