RR Nagar: Voters say BJP candidate behind ID collection

In a major twist to the criminal case against the RR Nagar Congress MLA N Munirathna, two complaints were filed against the BJP MLA candidate Muniraju Gowda, accusing him of falsely implicating Munirathna in the case.

Munirathna was booked for illegally collecting over 10,000 voter ID cards. But now, two voters from the RR Nagar constituency have claimed that in fact, it was Muniraju who had collected the ID cards. He had also threatened the complainants to take Munirathna’s name when questioned by police.

R Kumar (39) and C Anandan (49), the voters filed separate complaints before the Nandini Layout police claiming that Muniraju Gowda had collected the voter ID cards six months before the elections.

Kumar stated in his complaint that, Muniraju Gowda had organised a rangoli competition in Laggere, and collected the voter ID cards on the pretext of making sure that all participants were from his constituency.

He gave away gold, silver coins and money as awards. But he did not return the cards. He said that as he is contesting the elections, he would return them on the polling day and ask them to vote for him, Kumar claimed.

After the voter ID cards were seized, Gowda threatened them to tell the police that associates of Munirathna had taken the ID cards from them, he added.

However, Anand stated in his complaint that following the seizure of the voter ID cards, he went to the station, but the police refused to file a complaint.

But it was filed after the court directed the police to take our complaint, Anand said.