Congress and the BJP traded barbs on the Thursday night incident in Varuna constituency where supporters of both the parties clashed during campaigning.
Mysuru MP Pratap Simha said here on Friday that the Congress was overcome by the fear that its candidate, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is pitted against Housing Minister V. Somanna, would lose and hence was restoring to undemocratic means and preventing them from campaigning.
BJP supporters were being repeatedly obstructed by supporters of Mr. Siddaramaiah at different places as was evident in Bhugathalli, Vajamangala, and at Siddaramanahundi in Varuna constituency and we are being asked “not to enter the village”, Mr. Simha alleged.
“One of our workers was assaulted at Siddaramanahundi, and there are reports that members of Kuruba community supporting the BJP are being intimidated by followers of Mr. Siddaramaiah who is perturbed by the traction and support that the BJP campaign was receiving,” he said.
Mr. Simha also took exception to the remarks of AICC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge describing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “poisonous snake” though he retracted it subsequently, saying that he meant it to be the BJP. “We do not expect a leader of the stature of Mr. Kharge to make such remarks and it was reflective of the mindset of the Congress,” said Mr. Simha.
‘Extern Pratap Simha’
The Congress on its part flayed Mr. Simha for instigating the people with incendiary talk and asked the Election Commission to extern him from the constituency.
M. Lakshman, KPCC spokesman, said they had no objection to anybody campaigning in any constituency but the authorities should ensure that incendiary speeches were not made to provoke the public of which Mr. Simha was guilty.
Referring to the Varuna incident, Mr. Lakshman said there was no intimidation of the BJP candidate and his supporters and this had been stated by the Superintendent of Police, and challenged the BJP to provide video and photographic evidence as the campaigning exercise was recorded by an independent team.
Mr. Lakshman accused the government of misusing the administrative machinery and alleged that the State government and the Central government officials were moving around in vehicles with “On election duty” stickers and distributing money to the voters.
The KPCC spokesman also alleged that the Central security forces, including the CRPF and ITBP, tend to accompany the Congress campaigning team and prevent people from gathering under the pretext of security. “We do not want the Central forces to accompany us and have complained to the Election Commission,” he added.
