8 Karnataka MLCs falsified residential addresses to vote for mayoral election, says BBMP report

The report also found that these MLCs had given false information to the Karnataka Legislative Council to claim lakhs of rupees as travelling allowance by submitting fake bills.

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Eight members of the Legislative Council, including RB Thimmappa of the Congress, who is contending for a ministerial berth, has been found to have falsified data in order to be able to vote for the Bengaluru mayoral election, Deccan Herald reported.

Timmapur, Allum Veerabhadrappa, Raghu Achar, N S Boseraju, S Ravi (all Congress), C R Manohar and Appaji Gowda (JD-S) and M D Lakshminarayana (Independent) are the eight MLCs.

A report submitted by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has found that the MLCs submitted false information to get their names included in the Bengaluru electoral rolls and vote in the mayoral election last year.

In July this year, the Election Commission had initiated a probe based on a complaint filed by BBMP council leader Padmanabha Reddy seeking disqualification of eight MLCs, who are facing allegations of furnishing false residential address in order to vote, during the BBMP mayoral elections in August 2016.

BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad submitted the report on Tuesday. Besides, the BBMP report also found that these MLCs had given false information to the Karnataka Legislative Council to claim lakhs of rupees as travelling allowance by submitting fake bills.

Padmanabha Reddy had accused these legislators of misleading the Upper House to claim travel allowance. They had furnished an address of their home towns as proof of residence for claiming the allowance, despite officially registering themselves as residents of Bengaluru, the DH report said.

These legislators are accused of claiming a total of Rs 37 lakh as allowance. Padmanabha Reddy had demanded that the eight legislators be disqualified as MLCs.

Timmapur, who is said to have been shortlisted by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to be inducted in the council of ministers, had enrolled himself as a voter in Bengaluru city limits on August 22, 2016. After the mayoral poll in September 2016, Timmapur claimed travel allowance from the Council with Bagalkot as his ordinary address.

“If we consider the address given to the Constitutional Authority (Legislative Council) is true, then he has submitted false information that he is ordinary resident in Bengaluru to get inclusion in the Bengaluru electoral roll (sic),” the report states.

Timmapur’s Form-6 (application for inclusion in electoral roll) was incomplete, the report adds, and also says that he submitted a Form-7 (application for deletion) in January 2017.

Also, MLC Veerabhadrappa had claimed allowance by stating that his permanent address is in Ballari, Lakshminarayana claimed his residence to be in Turuvekere, Manohar as Kolar, Boseraju as Raichur, Gowda as Mandya, Ravi as Ramanagaram and Raghu Achar as Chitradurga.

“If we consider the address given to the Constitutional Authority is true, then he has submitted false information that he is ordinary resident in Bengaluru to get inclusion in the Bengaluru electoral roll,” the report states.

The report has also found procedural lapses in the inclusion of names of the MLCs. When contacted, Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha told DH that the electoral registration officer must have allowed the procedural lapses.