Bengaluru, 27 June

The fact-finding committee constituted by the Karnataka BJP to look into cross-voting by party MLAs during the recent MLC polls submitted its report to state unit President BY Vijayendra on Saturday.

Senior MLC CT Ravi, who headed the committee, said the report contains information gathered during the inquiry and identifies areas where the BJP should have exercised greater internal caution.

"Party President Vijayendra had constituted a three-member internal fact-finding committee comprising me, state vice-president N Mahesh and MLA Mahesh Tenginakayi. He directed us to conduct an internal inquiry and submit the report at the earliest," Ravi said.

"Accordingly, we completed the inquiry within four days and, after discussions among the three of us, submitted the report, which contains findings on which all three members agreed," he added.

Speaking to reporters after submitting the report, he said that immediately after receiving directions from the party president, the committee held a virtual meeting to determine the scope of the inquiry.

A list of individuals considered suspicious based on media reports and other available information was prepared, and discussions were held with them.

"We held discussions with the candidates, gathered their views, spoke to JD(S) leaders, collected information from the media, and held discussions with the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition chief whip. After considering the locally available information and circumstantial evidence, we prepared the report and submitted it to the party president," he said.

Ravi said that since it was an internal inquiry report submitted to the state president, it would be inappropriate to disclose further details.

He declined to comment when asked whether the report identified those involved in cross-voting.

"There were 12 instances of cross-voting by NDA legislators. BJP lost four votes, including one invalid vote. Thirty votes had been allocated to the BJP's two candidates," he said.

"One candidate received 29 votes, with one vote declared invalid, while the other received 27 votes, three fewer than expected. JD(S) should have received 22 votes but got only 14, an eight-vote shortfall," he added.

Stating that the Congress should not assume the cross-voting reflected admiration for the party, Ravi alleged that the ruling party had engineered the cross-voting through "unethical means".

"When cross-voting happened in other states, the Congress used to say it was against democratic values. By encouraging cross-voting, you too have undermined democracy and have no moral right to question cross-voting in other states," he said.

Ravi said the internal inquiry report also identifies areas where the BJP should have exercised greater internal caution.

Asked whether there would be a final report, he said the party president would decide the next course of action after discussions in the party's core committee.

The ruling Congress on June 18 won five of the seven Legislative Council seats that went to the polls, while the opposition BJP secured two.

The JD(S) failed to win the lone seat it contested.

The results indicated cross-voting by BJP and JD(S) legislators in favour of Congress candidates, with the ruling party receiving 151 votes—11 more than the expected 140.