BENGALURU: After announcing that it will field 25 candidates in the upcoming Karnataka elections, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has decided to pull back its candidates. SDPI’s decision to withdraw nominations of its candidates in all seats except three is likely to favour Congress in crucial seats of Bantwal, Sarvagnanagar and Hebbal. SDPI will now field candidates only in Narasimharaja in Mysuru, Chickpet in Bengaluru and Kalaburagi North.

“We had decided to contest for 25 seats initially but our ideological rival BJP has to be stopped from coming to power. Our stand is to ensure communal parties are kept at bay and one of our candidates gets elected to Vidhana Soudha,” said Abdul Lateef, state general secretary, SDPI. The party had announced a list of candidates for Bantwal, Sarvagnanagar, Hebbal and Mangaluru North, all of which will be withdrawn. The move will transfer all SDPI votes to Congress.

“We have not decided on whether we will campaign for any other party,” Lateef added. Consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the Congress will benefit sitting MLA Ramanath Rai who is facing the Hindutva heat with BJP fuelling voters’ anger.

In 2013, SDPI had contested 23 seats but forfeited deposit in 22. It had a cumulative vote share of 3.27 per cent. In Narasimharaja, SDPI’s Abdul Majid had ended at second position with 29,667 votes where Congress’ Tanveer Sait won by a margin of 8,370 votes.

 

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New Delhi(PTI): The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the publication of draft electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar saying it would once for all decide the pleas against the Election Commission's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said it would fix on July 29, the time schedule to conduct the final hearing of the matter.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for an NGO, said the electoral rolls should not be finalised in the interim and there should be an interim stay on the publication of the draft rolls.

The bench observed the last order of the top court noted the petitioners not pressing for an interim relief and, therefore, it couldn't be done now and matter would be interpreted once for all.

It asked the poll panel to continue accepting Aadhaar and voter ID for the SIR exercise in Bihar in compliance with its order saying both documents had a "presumption of genuineness".

The court said it prima facie agreed with the order of the top court and the EC accepted in its counter affidavit that Aadhaar, voter cards and ration cards were required to be accepted.

“As far as ration cards are concerned we can say they can be forged easily but Aadhaar and voter cards have some sanctity and have presumption of genuineness. You continue accepting these documents,” the bench said.