Karnataka Election Results 2018: Hung house in Karnataka; Congress and BJP spar over poaching rumors; Updates

After results to the Karnataka Assembly election 2018 threw up a hung Assembly on Tuesday, both BJP and Congress-JD(S) combine are targetting each other with allegations of poaching of legislators.

Karnataka Election Results 2018 : A day after the Karnataka Assembly election results threw up a fractured mandate, some members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were reported to be claiming that they were in touch with several of elected members of legislative Assembly (MLAs) from the Congress and the JD(S), and that the BJP would definitely form the next government in the state.

The BJP, apparently, is in talks with at least seven of the 10 Lingayat legislators of the Congress who are unhappy with the party for dividing the Lingayat community votes and are unwilling to accept Kumaraswamy, a Vokkaliga, as their chief minister. Sources in the BJP told Business Standard that the party was also in touch with about half a dozen JD(S) MLAs who might be willing to abstain from voting at the time of the floor test.

Congress leader D K Shivakumar, while talking to news agency ANI, said that the party had a plan and that they were facing a lot of pressure with the BJP trying to poach Congress MLAs.

Also Read : BJP Falls Short Of Majority; Cong-JD(S) Stitch Alliance

In the Karnataka Assembly election 2018 results, the BJP emerged as the single largest party, with 104 seats, but it fell short of the halfway mark of 112 in the 224-seat state Assembly by 9 seats. Congress ended up as the second-biggest with 78 seats, and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) stood third with 38 seats. The Congress and the JD(S) decided to come together to form a coalition government.

At present, the ball is in the court of Governor Vajubhai Vala, who will decide which side would be invited to form the next government. According to an NDTV report, both sides would meet the governor again on Wednesday to make their case stronger.

Karnataka Assembly election 2018 saw a record 72.36 per cent of the 50.7 million (5.07 crore) voters exercising their right to franchise. Of them, 27,908 electors in defence services voted through postal ballots. The Election Commission had deployed 16,662 personnel for counting of votes amid tight security.

Four of the seven polling agencies had predicted in their exit polls that the BJP would emerge as the single-largest party. While most exit polls predicted a hung Assembly with the BJP ahead, two had said the BJP would either come very close to or cross the halfway mark of 112 seats. The India Today-Axis exit poll had said the Congress might bag a majority. All exit polls had given the H D Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) nearly two dozen seats or more. The JD(S), however, beat that projection by bagging 37 seats.

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Cambridge Analytica Row: Who used stolen data for polls – Congress or BJP?

Ravi Shankar Prasad said, ‘The Congress must explain if it has engaged in data trade with Cambridge Analytica’.

Latest News : The BJP and the Congress accused each other of using the services of embattled data consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) that along with Facebook is at the centre of a global row over the alleged unauthorized use of personal data from the social media giant.

As the firestorm over the issue hit India, the government warned Facebook, which is being probed by US and British lawmakers over a potential breach of user confidentiality, of stringent action if any attempt was made to influence the country’s electoral process through “undesirable means”.

However, the company’s India partner Oveleno Business Intelligence (OBI) lists the BJP, the Congress and the JD-U as its clients. The India partner is by Amrish Tyagi, son of senior JD-U leader K. C. Tyagi. In media interviews, the junior Tyagi admitted that the Youth Congress in Jharkhand, the BJP and the JD-U had used its services to conduct research.

BJP leader and Union Law and IT and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad cited media reports to allege that the Congress was using the services of the London-based political data analytics firm for the next Lok Sabha election and boost its president Rahul Gandhi’s social media profile and its outreach.

“The Congress must explain if it has engaged in data trade with Cambridge Analytica,” the minister said.

He said the number of Gandhi’s followers on Twitter had risen recently and wondered if the Congress had used the services of the Cambridge Analytica for this “fake popularity”.

“Will the Congress now depend on data manipulation and theft to woo voters,” Prasad asked.

“These days, there is a lot of news about CA and how it has been involved in data theft, psychometric analysis, data manipulation and subversion of democratic processes. Can the Congress deny that?” he asked.

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