CM Yediyurappa defends Gowda family over Nikhil Kumaraswamy's wedding row
Bengaluru: Virtually defending the Gowda family for conducting a marriage reportedly defying lockdown restrictions, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday said it was performed in a simple manner and well within their limits, "for which they are to be congratulated."
"All the necessary permissions were given and the marriage was performed in a simple manner. There is no need to discuss about it.
They had done it well within their limits for which I congratulate them," Yediyurappa said to a query from reporters during the post-COVID-19 briefing.
Scores of people had thronged a farmhouse on Friday to get a glimpse of the wedding of former Prime Minister and JD (S) supremo, H D Deve Gowda's grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy, ignoring appeals not to visit the venue in view of the ongoing lockdown to check the COVID-19 outbreak.
Nikhil, son of former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, tied the nuptial knot with Revathi, the grand-niece of former Karnataka housing minister M Krishnappa.
The marriage was solemnised at Kumaraswamy's Kethaganahalli farmhouse at Bidadi in the neighbouring Ramanagara district, a JD(S) stronghold.
Kumaraswamy had taken to Twitter after the marriage, thanking his party MLAs, leaders and workers for staying away from the event and blessing his son from their houses. In a series of tweets, he had said social distancing was maintained and all precautionary measures were taken throughout the event.
BJP had hit out at the JD(S) first family for flouting the norms, alleging that at least 150 to 200 vehicles were given permission to attend the event, that too at at time when social workers wanting to serve the badly affected poor people were not being allowed to ply any form of transport
JD(S) leader N H Konaraddi and MLC T A Sharavanna had denied the charges, saying the union government guidelines had been followed and that social distancing was maintained.
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Rahul Gandhi demands 'clean, pure' voter list; says 'vote theft' issue will explode soon
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New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Opposition is protesting for the right to vote for every Indian and demanded a "clean and pure" voter list, asserting that the issue of alleged irregularities pointed out by him will "explode" soon as it is not related to a single constituency but the whole country.
Indicating that he would not submit a signed affidavit as sought by the Election Commission, Gandhi asserted that the data analysed by the Congress to provide "proof" of "vote theft" is taken from the EC website.
"This is their data. It is not my data that I should sign. It is their data only and has been taken from their website. This is only a move to distract," he told reporters.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, who participated in a protest march by the opposition on the "vote theft" issue, said the Election Commission is "silent" as the truth is before the entire nation after his charge that over one lakh votes in an assembly constituency in Karnataka were found to be fake in a research conducted by his party.
"Another thing I want to tell is that this has not just happened in Bangalore, but in different constituencies across the country, and the Election Commission knows this. The EC knows that this data will explode. What it is trying to control and hide, we will bring it out, and it will explode. The EC knows this," he told reporters.
Gandhi was briefly detained along with others as police stopped the protest march by opposition MPs from Parliament House to the EC office.
"They (EC) cannot talk as the truth is before the entire nation," the Congress leader said as he was being taken away in a bus by the police.
"This fight is not political, but for saving the Constitution," he asserted.
This fight is for 'one man, one vote' and we want a clean, pure voter list," the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha added.
He said all the MPs of the INDIA alliance were stopped and taken into custody when they were going to meet the Election Commission.
"The truth of 'vote theft' is now before the country. This fight is not political; it is a fight to protect democracy, the Constitution, and the right to ‘one person, one vote’.
"The united opposition and every voter in the country demand a clean and transparent voter list. And, we will secure this right at all costs," Gandhi claimed in a post on X later.
Gandhi had on Thursday cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through five types of manipulation in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka. He alleged there were 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single-address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters.
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