On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Bengaluru to inaugurate the Yellow Line of Bangalore Metro and the Vande Bharat Express train between Bengaluru and Belagavi.
The PM will additionally visit the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bengaluru.
The visit comes just days after senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s accusations of “voter fraud” in a Bengaluru seat.
On Thursday, Gandhi accused the poll body and the BJP of perpetrating “a huge criminal fraud” in elections. To back his accusation, Gandhi released what he called findings of an investigation the Congress had carried out in the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency that is part of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka.
In a presentation to the media at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters, Gandhi said the Congress won all the Assembly segments in Bangalore Central except Mahadevpura and lost the election by 1,14,046 votes.
“They were stolen in five different ways: duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, bulk voters in a single address, invalid photos, and misuse of Form 6, which is given to first-time voters for enrolment,” Gandhi said.
The LoP said the Congress analysis revealed 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters with the same address, 4,132 invalid photos, and 33,692 instances of Form 6 misuse.
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Gandhi alleged there were instances of one person appearing in “four polling booths” and voting in multiple booths. “There are thousands of such voters who have voted multiple times in different states. A total of 11,965 votes have been stolen like this,” the LoP said, showing voter lists with the photograph of a person whom he identified as Gurkirat Singh Dang. Gandhi claimed Dang’s name figured in voter lists in four different polling booths in Mahadevpura.
Gandhi then showed voter lists with the photograph of a person whom he identified as Adtiya Srivastava, and claimed the person in question was enrolled as a voter in two polling booths in Karnataka and one each in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. “… Same name, the same address, the same person in four different polling booths. And this is not just one person, this is thousands of people in one Assembly,” he said.
On Friday, he urged the Congress-led Karnataka government to investigate alleged irregularities in the Bangalore Central constituency during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and initiate action against the culprits behind it.
Addressing the Congress’s ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’ at Freedom Park in Bengaluru, Gandhi asked the EC to share the digital voter list of constituencies across India compiled in the last 10 years along with CCTV footage recorded at polling booths in elections during this period.
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“Here (in Karnataka), one Lok Sabha seat was stolen. This is a criminal act against the people of the state. The Karnataka government should investigate this and take action,” Gandhi said.
J&K statehood demand
On Saturday, Jammu and Kashmir Congress leaders sat on a hunger strike to press for the restoration of the Union territory’s statehood.
The strike was launched by Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) president Tariq Karra at the party’s head office at M A Road in Srinagar.
A similar hunger strike will be observed in Jammu on Sunday.
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Speaking to reporters, Karra said the party has launched a “struggle to awaken the blind, deaf and dumb government in Delhi”.
“We selected this day as it is the day when the ‘Quit India Movement’ was launched. From August 9 to 21, the party will observe six hunger strikes across various districts of J-K,” he said.
Last month, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah made a plea to the Centre for restoring statehood. “We’re not asking for something that is not our due. Statehood is the right, it was promised to the people,” he had said on July 20. What would restoration of statehood mean for J&K? What would it take for that to happen?
— With PTI inputs