No evidence of luring voters: CM Siddaramaiah to Karnataka High Court

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told the Karnataka High Court on April 1 that there is no evidence to back the claims that the Congress election manifesto amounted to luring voters through bribery during the 2023 Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections. .There is no evidence regarding the timing, location or nature of the alleged actions by Karnataka CM to entice voters, Senior Advocate Ravivarma Kumar submitted on behalf of Siddaramaiah.The submission was made before Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav, who was hearing an election petition by a voter against CM's election from the Varuna assembly constituency in the State elections last year..The petition said that the Congress party's election manifesto, which provided five guarantees to the people of Karnataka, amounted to bribery and undue influence under Section 123(2) of the Act.According to the plea, the manifesto was promulgated with Siddaramaiah's consent and the guarantees amounted to gratification to the electorate of Varuna constituency to induce them to vote for the party.Hence, it challenged the election of Siddaramaiah under Sections 100 (1)(b), (d)(i), (d)(ii), (d)(iii), and (d)(iv) of The Representation of the People Act.The High Court had issued notice in the matter on July 28..During the hearing today, Prof Kumar, who argued for Siddaramaiah, read out key points in the affidavits of the suit and strongly argued that the allegations contained in it are baseless.He further pointed out that the name of the Chief Secretary to the State government was misspelled by the petitioners. He questioned how it was right for a woman, advocate Pramila Nesargi, to misspell the name of a high ranking woman.Nesargi countered, stating that it could have been a mistake and that there was no need to read the petition in such detail before the bench.Prof Kumar, however, claimed that there were multiple errors in the petition and maintained that it was baseless.Eventually, the hearing was adjourned to April 18.