Voting underway for 6 Karnataka Legislative Council seats
Bengaluru (PTI): Voting is underway on Monday in the biennial elections to six seats in the Karnataka Legislative Council from teachers' and graduates' constituencies.
Seventy-eight contestants are in the fray. Counting of votes will be held on June 6.
In the 75-member Upper House, the Congress has 29 members.
The polls are being held for the constituencies of Karnataka North East Graduates, Karnataka South West Graduates, Bangalore Graduates, Karnataka South-East Teachers, Karnataka South-West Teachers and Karnataka South Teachers.
These seats fell vacant following the retirement of six members.
The graduates' constituencies and teachers' constituencies have 3.63 lakh and 70,260 voters, respectively.
The Election Commission has set up 170 polling stations for the teachers' constituencies and 461 polling stations for the graduates' constituencies.
The Congress has fielded Marithibba Gowda (South Teachers constituency), K K Manjunath (South-West Teachers), Ayanur Manjunath (South-West Graduates), Chandrashekhar Patil (North-East Graduates), Ramoji Gowda (Bangalore Graduates) and D T Srinivas (South-East Teachers).
The BJP and its ally JD(S) are contesting the MLC elections together. The BJP is fighting in four constituencies and the JD(S) two.
The BJP has fielded Amarnath Patil from the Karnataka North-East Graduates constituency, Dr Dhananjay Sarji from the Karnataka South-West Graduates constituency, A Devegowda from the Bangalore Graduates' constituency and Y A Narayanaswamy from the South-East Teachers constituency.
The JD(S) candidates are K Vivekananda from the South Teachers constituency and Bhoje Gowda from the South West Teachers constituency.
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PM Modi, RSS strengthening wall in path of SCs, STs, OBCs: Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi (PTI): Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS were strengthening the wall standing in the path of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs, even as he acknowledged that the UPA took steps to weaken that wall but not to the extent it should have.
Addressing the 'Samvidhan Rakshak Abhiyaan', Gandhi also referred to the function held on Constitution Day in Parliament and said that it is his guarantee, that "Modi has not read" the Constitution.
"If PM Modi would have read this book then what he does daily, he would not do it," Gandhi said, displaying a copy of the Constitution of India.
Gandhi said the country's whole system is pitted against Dalits, Adivasis and backward class people.
He said a wall obstructs the path of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs and Modi and the RSS are strengthening that wall by "adding cement to it".
"Slowly the wall (obstructing the path of SCs, STs, OBCs) is getting strengthened. Earlier, the UPA government gave MGNREGA, the land acquisition act, the right to food...those were ways to weaken that wall. Today, when I look back, I can say the UPA government did not weaken the wall to the extent it should have, it did not do it as strongly as it should have," Gandhi said.
"However, we used to make efforts to weaken that wall but they (the BJP) are strengthening that wall by adding concrete," the former Congress president said.
Gandhi said a caste survey being carried out in Telangana is a historic step and the Congress will do the same wherever it comes to power.
