Mysuru: Maintaining that he was unaware of former Union Minister C.M. Ibrahim’s statement in Mysuru yesterday — that Siddaramaiah had won from the Badami Assembly segment in the 2018 elections by purchasing votes — Chief Minister Siddaramaiah clarified that Ibrahim is not in the Congress.

Speaking to reporters at Mysuru Airport this morning, Siddaramaiah, replying to a question, said Ibrahim had worked for him during the 2018 polls, but the claim that votes were purchased was new to him as he had never heard of such a thing. He maintained that he had stayed in Badami for only two days in the run-up to the 2018 Assembly polls.

When asked whether votes could have been purchased without his knowledge, the CM said he was not aware of it. On a separate question about a viral video in which he had allegedly said that even the dead had voted for him, the CM asserted that he had never made such a statement.

Referring to the Congress party’s allegation that the BJP had engaged in ‘vote theft’ to stay in power at the Centre — a charge echoed by Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi at a rally in Bengaluru yesterday — the CM said Rahul Gandhi’s statement was true.

“Congress party will consult its legal team to pursue a legal battle as well as other courses of action. The party has conducted extensive research into BJP’s ‘vote theft.’ Using the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of Bengaluru as a random sample, it has come to light that the theft has indeed taken place. Our internal survey had predicted 16 seats for the party in Karnataka, but we ended up winning only nine, primarily due to manipulation of electoral rolls and rigging of EVMs by the BJP,” he claimed.