EC directs transfer of Mandya DC over allegations of favouring Nikhil K

The Karnataka government on Tuesday transferred the Mandya Deputy Commissioner N Manjushree, who was also the District Election Officer, on the Election Commission's direction.

"On the EC directive, Commissioner of Public Instruction PC Jaffer has been posted as Deputy Commissioner and returning officer of Mandya with immediate effect," said an official statement issued by the State Election .

The poll panel's direction came after the Bharatiya Janata Party filed a complaint against Manjushree for allegedly favouring JD(S) candidate Nikhil K, son of Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, and being biased against his Independent rival, multilingual actress Sumalatha Ambareesh, whom the BJP is supporting.

The decision was made after Chief Electoral Officer Sanjeev Kumar went to Mandya to probe the allegations.

Sumalatha and her aides had alleged that the DC did not act on their complaint over alleged errors in nomination papers submitted by Nkhil Kumaraswamy. 

Polling in Mandya and 13 other seats will be held on April 18 in the first phase of the Lok Sabha election in Karnataka.

Earlier in a similar move, the  Election Commission had shunted out Hassan Deputy Commissioner Akram Pasha following a complaint from Hassan legislator Preetham Gowda (BJP) who accused him of working in a partisan manner. Akram was accused of favouring Prajwal Revanna.

Instead IAS officer Priyanka Mary Francis was posted as Hassan's new Deputy Commissioner.