BENGALURU: Reacting to his daughter Sowmya Reddy’s defeat by a mere 16 votes in the recently concluded Karnataka Assembly polls, BTM Layout Congress MLA and former minister Ramalinga Reddy on Monday said that the “injustice meted out to her” would be challenged.
“We will fight against the injustice meted out to former MLA Sowmya Reddy,” said Ramalinga Reddy, who is also the KPCC working president. He stated that injustice had been meted out to Sowmya, the Congress candidate from Jayanagar, and added that the party will fight this legally.
“We are surprised that the 250 votes which were considered invalid by the returning officer were later, as an afterthought, included in the counting process due to some unseen pressure,” he claimed, adding that such votes once marked as invalid cannot be included in the counting process.
Ramalinga Reddy further alleged that there was the influence of some UP politicians, former minister R Ashoka and Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya. Reddy alleged that the observer was sitting inside the returning officers’ chamber and alleged that Surya and Ashoka, who were present, were neither agents of the candidate nor the candidates themselves. He went on to add that a person from UP had used his influence to do this.
Sowmya told TNIE that she will fight against this “grave injustice” done to her. According to the official Election Commission website, she was ahead in the last round by about 160 votes.