CM Siddaramaiah's close aide Minister Rajanna to be dropped over voter fraud statement: Sources

Bengaluru, Aug 11 (IANS) In a major development, the Congress party has decided to seek the resignation of State Minister for Cooperation K.N. Rajanna, a close confidant of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, over his remarks regarding voter fraud, which allegedly took place during the tenure of the party's government in Karnataka, sources confirmed on Monday.

The party high command has directed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to obtain Minister Rajanna’s resignation on Monday itself.

Amid the controversy, Minister Rajanna met CM Siddaramaiah at his office in Vidhana Soudha.

Reacting to the news, Rajanna said he would speak after the meeting with the CM. "I am not clinging to power. I will respond by evening," he stated.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, R. Ashoka, stated on the floor of the House that Minister Rajanna had tendered his resignation two hours earlier. "I challenge the government on this. If this is not true, let the Speaker suspend me for one year," he declared.

Ashoka further demanded that Minister Rajanna, who was present in the Assembly session, provide clarity on the matter instead of sitting quietly.

Minister for Law H.K. Patil and Minister for Revenue Krishna Byre Gowda maintained that sudden media reports should not be taken up for discussion in the House.

Congress leaders had earlier submitted a complaint to Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala over Minister Rajanna’s statements against the party regarding election fraud.

When asked about the statement of Minister K.N. Rajanna, who stated that the party should have taken note of the alleged election fraud much earlier than raising it now, Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar stated that Minister Rajanna has issued a totally wrong statement. "He doesn't know. My Chief Minister will reply to it, and the high command will look into the matter," Shivakumar said.

Earlier, on August 8, Rajanna had stated, "Rahul Gandhi has made statements backed by documents. He is speaking with authority, and we must endorse his statements -- there is no doubt about it. The BJP is well aware of the malpractices. The RSS, the frontal organisation of the BJP, is manipulating everything."

“The common people are with us. In the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency, voters have been enrolled without proper addresses. How is that even possible? During the parliamentary election, our government was in power -- we should have been more alert. Instead, we are alert only now. Had we acted earlier, we could have prevented these malpractices," Minister Rajanna said.

"Out of the eight Assembly segments in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat, we had leads in seven. In only one -- Mahadevapura -- we did not. That single loss tilted the overall result. Isn’t that clearly due to malpractice?" he questioned.

--IANS

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