The High Court on Monday ordered emergent notices to the Indian National Congress (INC) president Sonia Gandhi, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President G Parameshwar, Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, on a petition filed alleging that Congress and other parties are collecting funds from applicants who have sought tickets to contest in the forthcoming Assembly election.
Justice S Abdul Nazeer issued the notices and directed them to file objections on a petition filed by V Shashidhar, president of Karnataka Police Maha Sangha, accusing the Election Commission of allowing political parties to collect party funds (in case of Congress, it is `10,000) while issuing applications to candidates wishing to contest the elections.
He further sought directions to the Election Commission to formulate proper guidelines and procedures to prevent such practices.
Shashidhar submitted that the Congress’ constitution does not provide for collection of party fund from its members for the Assembly elections and the Election Commission has to play a major role in curbing the collection of such funds by the political parties from its members at the time of holding elections to parliament, state assemblies, local bodies etc.
He also submitted that, according to a survey conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms and Karnataka Election Watch, a sum of `6,000 to 7,000 crore black money cash flow is involved in the Assembly election.
Shashidhar further sought directions to the ECI to seize the amount collected by the KPCC so far from its members. The total amount may be more than `2 crore collected from about 2500 members, he contended.
Judgment in KJP Case Reserved The High Court on Monday reserved for judgment a petition filed by Padmanabha Prasanna Kumar challenging the Election commission’s order recognising former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa as the president of Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP).
Hearing arguments by both the parties, Justice Abdul Nazeer reserved the petition for verdict. Kumar contended that Yeddyurappa had suppressed facts and forged his resignation letter while submitting documents to Election Commission.
He also claimed that the commission did not have any jurisdiction to issue order stating that Yeddyurappa is KJP’s president. He further sought directions to issue an interim stay on all further proceedings pursuant to the Election Commission order recognising Yeddyurappa as the president of the party.
He also sought directions to restrain the Election Commission from issuing ‘B’ forms to Yeddyurappa’s party till the petition is disposed of.