Bharat Bandh evokes good response in district
Agitators prepare pakoda on road and distribute them
Chikmagaluru, September 10: Bharat bandh called by the Congress and other opposition parties across the country condemning the price hike of petroleum products and essential commodities on Monday evoked good response in the district. The bandh was total and peaceful.
Shops and business establishments downed their shutters since morning. KSRTC buses were stayed off the roads. In some places, the agitators convinced the shop-keepers to close the doors of their shops. Petrol bunks and cinema theaters voluntarily supported the bandh and closed their business.
Bandh received good response even in the city. All business establishments, hotels, shops, petrol bunks were closed. Though post office and other offices were opened in the morning, they downed their shutters after the agitators sought their cooperation for the bandh and convinced them. As the deputy commissioner declared holiday for schools and colleges on Sunday, the students did not turn up towards the schools and colleges on Monday. The agitators who passed on in all roads were seen closing the shops and business establishments which were functioning in the morning.
Few autos were seen on the roads. When some lorries and maxi-cabs were seen moving on the roads, agitators appealed them stay off the roads as there is Bharat Bandh. At Hanumanthappa Circle, the agitators released the air of an auto and cab tyres and stopped them at the circle.
Prepared pakoda
In view of the Bharat Bandh, the agitators cooked pakoda at Hanumanthappa circle during bandh and protested the fuel price hike differently. The agitators prepared hearth with the help of bricks on the road, put frying pan on it and cooked pakoda and prepared tea and coffee and distributed them to the general public and police. They distributed pakoda and tea shouting as Modi pakoda and Modi tea. Former MLC A.V Gayathri Shante Gowda, CPI leader Radha Sundaresh, BSP leader K.T Radhakrishna and others prepared the pakoda and tea.
As there was no traffic movement in the roads, Kannada Rakshana Vedike and CPI workers played cricket at Hanumanthappa circle for some time. The bandh was total in Tarikere, Kaduru, Mudigere, Sringeri and Koppa taluks of the district. When the Congress workers forced the shop owners to shut the shops at Balehonnur, shop owner and the party workers engaged in verbal duals and the agitators attacked the shop owner. Apart from this untoward incident, the bandh was almost peaceful in the district.
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After poll debacle, defeated MVA candidates to seek verification of EVM-VVPAT units
Mumbai(PTI): The Maha Vikas Aghadi candidates who faced defeat in the recent Maharashtra assembly polls have decided to seek verification of the EVM-Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) units in their segments, a leader of the opposition alliance said.
Many losing candidates of the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) pointed fingers at the functioning of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during their interaction with party head Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday.
Thackeray took stock of the lacklustre performance of his party at a meeting held at his residence in Mumbai.
The poll verdict last week saw the Mahayuti coalition, comprising the Shiv Sena, BJP, and NCP, retaining power with a massive mandate, pushing the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to margins.
The Mahayuti won 230 seats and MVA only 46 in the 288-member House.
The Thackeray-led Sena (UBT) emerged as the largest party in the opposition camp by winning 20 seats, followed by Congress which bagged 16 constituencies, while the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) sits at the bottom with a tally of 10 seats.
Talking to PTI on Tuesday, Congress leader Arif Naseem Khan, who lost the election from Chandivali assembly constituency in Mumbai, said he held a discussion with Thackeray, who also said he has got complaints from his party workers that EVMs could have been tampered.
"We are getting complaints from different parts of the state expressing doubts over the results. In a democracy, complaints need to be verified and many of us, including myself, (who faced defeat) are in the process of applying for the verification," Khan said.
As per the Supreme Court's judgement on April 26 this year, the burnt memory/microcontroller in 5 per cent of the EVMs - the control unit, ballot unit and the VVPAT - per assembly constituency shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from manufacturers of the EVMs, after the announcement of results, for any tampering or modification, he said.
A written request for this has to be made by candidates who are in the second or third position behind the highest polled candidate.
Such a request has to be made within seven days of declaration of the result, Khan said.
A candidate making the request will have to pay the expenses of Rs 41,000 which will be refunded in case the machine is found to be tampered with, he said.
The microcontroller is a one-time programmable chip embedded into the three units of EVM-Ballot Unit, Control Unit and the VVPAT - at the time of manufacturing, as per the SC.
A Sena (UBT) MLA from Mumbai has claimed there were discrepancies between the votes polled and the votes counted in the EVMs.
"Almost all candidates raised doubts over the EVMs," the legislator said.
