From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Feb 27: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday, said the three Congress candidates Ajay Mqaken, Chandrashekar and Syed Nasir Hussain will win handsomely.
He said the JDS had 19 MLAs and was unable to get its candidate Kupendra Reddy elected. "Why did the party field its candidate when it knew JDS does not have the numbers? All these attempts to luring and threatening will not work," he said.
The Chief Minister attacked JDS and claimed that the party does not have conscience. "When it has secular in its name, why did JDS join hands with BJP and align with it? It is obvious that JDS has no conscience," he quipped.
Siddaramaiah said the Congress party has 136 MLAs and independent MLAs – Lata Prakash, Mallikarjuna, Darshan Puttannayya, Puttaswamy Gowda and Janardhana Reddy have assured support, So where is the question of counting on votes from others? It is BJP and JDS who floated the idea of conscience vote, he added.
BJP-JDS sought votes as per conscience, BJP MLAs have cast franchise accordingly: DKS
Opposition BJP and JDS leaders had asked legislators to cast votes in the Rajya Sabha polls according to conscience and fielded the fifth candidate with plans to get votes from Congress MLAs and the BJP MLAs have voted as per their conscience, remarked Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Tuesday.
Answering questions from media persons near Vidhana Soudha, he said the party position in the State Assembly suggested that the ruling Congress party could easily win 3 seats while BJP could bag the fourth. The BJP had excess votes and JDS with barely 19 members could not get its candidate elected. Still, BJP-JDS fielded the fifth candidate and wanted to defeat one of the Congress candidates.
"We were fully aware of the plans and schemes of BJP and JDS and have ensured that all our three candidates get elected by allotting the necessary number of MLAs to vote for each candidate," he explained.
Shivakumar, who is also KPCC President and Congress party’s election agent during the polling, said the BJP having consented to support the fifth candidate Kupendra Reddy of JDS should have allotted 45 votes and transferred the excess votes to JDS if they wanted their alliance to win.
But, he said the BJP has allotted 48 votes to its candidate and abandoned the JDS candidate. They should have followed the alliance dharma, he said.
When asked about BJP MLA Somashekar reportedly cross-voting, the KPCC Chief said he is not aware of the votes cast by others. "I don’t know about cross voting. Ask BJP, who had asked MLAs to vote as per their conscience," he retorted.
Asked whether the ruling party would extend support to the MLA in the eventuality of any action against cross-voting, Shivakumar quipped: "Let us talk about it when the time comes. I am unaware of the complaint to the Speaker regarding cross-voting in violation of the party whip by BJP and mote to seek disqualification. Somashekar has voted according to his conscience as the direction from his own party. It is BJP and JDS to ponder whether they did the right thing in fielding the fifth candidate," he said.
The Deputy Chief Minister said: "Somashekar has voted according to his conscience. The voting concerns whether the BJP-JDS alliance is corer or not. The educated voters such as graduates and teachers have already rejected the alliance in the Council elections. Let us see what the MLA has decided."
He said victory and defeat are part of democracy and the Congress party was fully aware of the consequences if its candidates had lost. "We have taken sufficient precautions," he said.
To a question on JDS leader H D Kumaraswamy’s charge that the Congress party has kept its MLAs under wraps, he said the Congress party discharged its duty and done what is necessary.