The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Political parties divided over election deadline

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Wednesday, Mar 05, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Political parties divided over election deadline

Special Correspondent

CEC will consider all memorandums before setting the date

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Talking point: Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami flanked by Election Commissioners S.Y. Quraishi (left) and Navin Chawla at a meeting in Bangalore on Tuesday.

Bangalore: The division among the political parties in the State over the timing of the Assembly elections came to the fore on Tuesday with the Congress party opposing immediate elections while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (Secular) demanded elections ahead of the May 28 deadline.

Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami, along with the two other Election Commissioners S.Y. Quraishi and Navin B. Chawla, received memorandums from the representatives of the political parties. The arguments put across by the political parties will be considered before the Election Commission decides on the election calendar.

The Congress delegation, led by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President Mallikarjun Kharge and former Chief Minister Dharam Singhpresented a memorandum to the Election Commission and demanded that elections should not be held until a proper revision of electoral rolls was completed and photo identity cards issued to voters. The charge was that there were nearly 58 lakh “bogus voters” as communicated by the Election Commission, and that the State election authorities were deleting names in a random fashion.

Mr. Gopalaswami later said that the charge of “bogus voters” was improper. There were nearly 58 lakh voters whose names were traced in more than one polling station and of them nearly 52 lakh names had been deleted. “They are not bogus voters. They had not deleted their names when they shifted from one area to another. Following the revision, nearly 20 lakh names had been added to the electoral rolls and another 10 lakh corrections had been carried out during the revision,” he said.

Memorandums

In its memorandum to the Election Commission, the BJP said that it was totally opposed to the extension of President’s rule and that Assembly elections should be held well ahead of the May 28 deadline. President of the JD (S) Merajuddin Pateland State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (M) V.J.K. Nair also demanded that elections be held on schedule. President of the Janata Dal (United) B. Somashekar urged the EC to complete the revision of electoral rolls. P.G.R. Sindhia of the Bahujan Samaj Party, representatives of the Nationalist Congress Party and the State Secretary of the Communist Party of India, Siddanagouda Patil, also submitted memorandums.

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