We had reported earlier that a video had surfaced which hinted at Congress involvement in the huge controversy that has broken out over the alleged bribes for votes scandal. The video showed that the business cards and pamphlets of a Congress candidate, Munirathna, were discovered at the site where thousands of voter cards were discovered.
Now, Republic TV has reported that Munirathna has admitted that the cards and pamphlets discovered at the site did indeed belong to him. Munirathna’s admission comes as a huge embarrassment for the Congress party which has been pointing fingers at the BJP ever since the scandal broke out. As the Election Commission probes the matter, it will be interesting to see the candidate’s defence and that of his party.
In another revelation, Republic TV which has been doing an extensive coverage of the entire controversy claimed to have stung one of the touts involved in the operation. The tout confirmed that she had collected the voter cards for the Congress MLA.
The scandal broke out when thousands of voter cards were found at an apartment in Bengaluru along with laptops and printers. The Election Commission seized the contents of the apartment and confirmed that counterfoils which are used for new addition of names in the electoral rolls were also seized. It appears that the voter cards were collected for ‘need-based profiling’ of voters and it is suspected that attempts were being made to buy the votes of slum dwellers by bribing them with goods or services.
