BENGALURU: The Congress government is putting pressure on election officials not to declare the results of the Sringeri Assembly constituency, claimed Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly R Ashoka.
He further demanded that the election officials immediately declare the results and comply with the High Court’s order. Speaking to the media, Ashoka said that in Sringeri, BJP candidate DN Jeevaraj has received 52 postal votes.
“The court order clearly states that whoever gets more votes in the counting should be declared the winner. When asked about this, the Election Commission gave a reply that they would inform the High Court.
The Congress government has exerted pressure on the election officer and is suppressing the results. This amounts to violating the court order and is a betrayal of the people of the state. The moment they realised the results were going in favour of BJP, the officials did a U-turn.
Postal votes are always counted first, followed by votes from the EVMs. But in Sringeri, everything has been done in reverse. We had approached the court regarding this. The State Government withholding the results is a clear misuse of power.
The election officer must declare the results immediately,” the BJP leader said. Meanwhile, the Congress hit back at Ashoka. “He (Ashoka) is making such meaningless statements only to please the BJP high command and ensure that he continues as opposition leader.
Everyone knows that they have held it as per Supreme Court order in a fair and transparent way and Congress candidate Raje Gowda has got more votes,” Congress MLC and Media Cell Chairman Ramesh Babu said.