Tejasvi Surya is contesting from Bengaluru South seat, which he won last time
Bangalore:
Congress leader Soumya Reddy, who will face off against the BJP’s Tejasvi Surya in Bengaluru South Lok Sabha election, has sought the Election Commission’s intervention as There were allegations that students were forced to attend nomination rallies for BJP leaders.
In a post on One of the messages said “no excuses accepted” and that those who attended the rally would receive T-shirts. This message also assures students that they will be given the opportunity to participate in this event.
Ms Reddy also tagged the Indian Youth Congress (IYC)’s social media post on the issue. The IYC post shared a screenshot of a tweet in which a student claimed that the student body president of their institution threatened them not to attend the rally.
One of the screenshots showed a member of the WhatsApp group asking why he had to participate. Another user replied that Mr Surya had accepted the student union’s request to attend the college celebrations and “now it’s our turn to do the same”.
The International Youth Council questioned why politics courses were made compulsory for students. “Isn’t this a breach of the code of conduct?” it asked. Sharing IYC’s post, Ms Reddy tagged the chief electoral officer of Karnataka and said: “Demand for action.”
Mr Surya, who is about to file his nomination papers, has not yet responded to the allegations today. However, his office released videos of some young people saying they were happy to attend the nomination rally for BJP MPs.
Mr Suriya is the MP from Bengaluru South, a BJP stronghold previously held by veteran leader and Union minister the late Ananth Kumar for two decades. In the 2019 elections, Mr. Suriya defeated Congress MP BK Hariprasad by a margin of over 3 lakh votes.
Ms Reddy is the daughter of Karnataka Minister Ramalinga Reddy and a former MP from Jayanagar, one of the eight parliamentary constituencies in Bengaluru South Assembly constituency.
