Staff Correspondent
Party fielded Raheem Khan at the last minute
He hopes to benefit from the demolition drive in the city
BIDAR: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is banking on its nominee Raheem Khan in Bidar Assembly seat to regain its lost seat. The BSP won the seat last in the 1994 election, when its candidate Syed Zulfikar Hashmi stood from Bidar.
Mr. Khan is originally a Congressman and held the post of district unit general secretary but quit the party when denied the party ticket to contest the election from Bidar seat.
Mr. Khan was given the ticket by the BSP at the last minute on the last day of filing of nominations. In Bidar, the minorities hold the key for the success of the candidate.
From the constituency Maqsud Ali Khan, Moshin Kamal, Mohammed Laiquddin, all Congressmen, and Syed Zulfikar Hashmi have won the seat from the minority community.
For Mr. Khan, the demolition drive in the city has come as a “blessing” to build his image among the people. The widening of the roads occurred in the Old City of Bidar where the minorities are concentrated. Mr. Khan has reportedly spent generously from his personal sources for the persons affected by the demolition. According to sources close to him, this is likely to win him some support.
Mr. Khan will take on the former Minister and Congress nominee Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli.
In the 2004 election in Bidar constituency, independents have polled more votes than the official nominees. In that election, the former Minister Bandeppa Kashempur and Mr. Hashmi had both sought the Congress ticket and when denied ticket they contested the elections as independents.
Mr. Kashempur won the elections polling 67,015 votes while Mr. Hashmi secured about 39,000 votes, second highest in the fray
‘Brother of accused is not BSP candidate’
Bangalore: The Bangalore Rural police on Saturday clarified that the person accused of raping a minor girl is the brother of Syed Umraj Pasha who contested from the Sarvagnanagar Assembly segment as the National Ambedkar Congress candidate in the first phase of elections.
Superintendent of Police, Bangalore Rural, Vikas Kumar had said on Friday that Wasim Pasha, who has been accused of raping a minor girl on May 5 at a resort, was the brother of Syed Umraj Pasha, a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate.
On Saturday, Mr. Vikas Kumar said he came to know that Umraj Pasha is the National Ambedkar Congress candidate and does not belong to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
The Superintendent of Police said he had provided the information based on what the Vijayapura police, who had registered a case against Wasim Pasha, had told him.
Shettar gets notice for poll advertisement
Staff Correspondent
| Former Minister accused of not mentioning it in expenditure |
HUBLI: The returning officer for Hubli-Dharwad Central, Ajay Nagabhushan, has issued a notice to Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Jagadish Shettar for not providing details regarding an advertisement published in a Kannada daily recently.
The daily had published a special supplement on the achievements of Mr. Shettar.
However, the returning officer found that Mr. Shettar had not included the same in his election expenditure.
Reports
Mr. Nagabhushan has submitted reports on violation of the model code of conduct by the former Chief Minister Veerappa Moily and the former Union Minister Arun Jaitley.
Mr. Jaitley addressed members of the Hubli Bar Association at the office of the association on Thursday.
Official sources said that while Mr. Jaitley had permission to visit the blast site at the court complex, he did not have permission to address a gathering there.
Taking exception to it, the returning officer submitted a report to the district election officer.
Mr. Moily’s action of holding a press conference on Friday at a room in Rotary English Medium School, which is scheduled to be a polling booth, has been considered as a case of poll code violation. The returning officer has submitted a report to the district election officer in this regard. Meanwhile, the election officials have registered a complaint against Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hubli-Dharwad unit president Datta Dorle under the provisions of Public Property Disfigurement Act for pasting party stickers at Ramanagar near Keshwapur in Hubli.
Seized
In a joint operation, the Hubli police and election officials seized liquor worth Rs. 1.1 lakh at Kittur Channamma Circle here on Friday and arrested two persons in this connection.
The police gave the names of the arrested as Hiremath and Akki.
| Two officers transferred following political whimsicality |
| ‘Countermand elections or declare an Adivasi candidate as winner’ |
Democratic Presidential Candidates 08
As many as 132 candidates contesting in the Karnataka elections this year have a criminal record. The charges against the candidates vary from murder, attempt to murder, assault with deadly weapons, cheating and so on.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leads the pack with 37 candidates while the Janata Dal-Secular comes second with 28. The Congress has fielded 25 candidates with a criminal record. The remaining parties like the Janata Dal-United and others have 42 such candidates.
Statistics available with the Karnataka Election Watch, an initiative by the Association of Democratic Reforms, suggest that in the first phase of polling, the Janata Dal-Secular fielded 13 candidates with a criminal background while the BJP and Congress had 12 and 10 such ccandidates respectively. In the second phase, the BJP fielded 13 candidates with criminal records, the Congress had 9 and the JD-S had 8 such candiadtes. The BJP has fielded 12 candidates with a criminal background in the third phase of the polls while the Congress has 6 and the JD-S has seven.
The Karnataka Election Watch says that the overall quality of candidates leaves much to be desired. Unless the trend of fielding candidates with criminal records is checked, elections, democracy and overall governance will suffer.
A lot of these candidates are industrialists from real estate, liquor, mining and other industries. The Karnataka Election Watch points out that many candidates have reported a staggering increase in their assets, which needs to be investigated.
However, the various political parties are fielding fewer candidates with criminal records this year. In 2004, the BJP had 49 candidates with a criminal background, as against the 39 this year. The Janata Dal � Secular had fielded 39 candidates with criminal records in 2004, but is fielding only 28 this year.