Congress candidate in Bangalore cries foul over missing names

Bangalore, April 23 (IANS) Congress candidate Krishna Byre Gowda, contesting from the prestigious Bangalore South seat, has alleged that names of about 30,000 voters were found missing in key segments of the parliamentary constituency that went to the polls Thursday.

'I have petitioned the Election Commission to re-survey the areas where names of thousands of voters have been deleted and have demanded re-polling,' Byre Gowda told reporters late Thursday after meeting state chief electoral officer M.N. Vidyasankar.

About 50 percent of voting was recorded in the constituency till 5 p.m. when polling ended. The constituency has about two million registered voters.

'We found the names missing from the list of voters given to us by the election office on April 10. The deleted voters are from localities dominated by socially and economically weaker sections of society,' Byre Gowda asserted.

Four-time parliament member H.N. Ananth Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), low-cost airline pioneer captain G.R. Gopinath (independent) and K.E. Radhakrishna of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) are among the 20 candidates locked in a multi-cornered contest in the constituency.