BJP confident of winning Karnataka poll after Tripura win
Bengaluru, March 3 (IANS) After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a majority in the Tripura Assembly elections, the party’s state unit Chief B.S. Yeddyurappa on Saturday exuded confidence in winning over 150 of the 224 assembly constituencies in the upcoming Karnataka Assembly poll due in April-May.
“People of northeast and Tripura, in particular, have rejected corrupt and divisive politics of the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)..it is now clear that Karnataka will also reject Congress for its corruption and divisive politics unleashed by Siddaramaiah,” Yeddyurappa said in a statement in Bengaluru.
Karnataka will emulate Tripura, he asserted.
The verdict from the northeast polls has further enthused the party cadre in the poll-bound southern state, Yeddyurappa said.
“This will enable us to reach the target we have set for ourselves in Karnataka — 150 plus seats,” reiterated the Lok Sabha member from Shivamogga, about 300 km northwest from Bengaluru.
The “countdown” for the Congress party had begun as the people were choosing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “politics of development” and were keen on making India Congress-free, the BJP leader said.
The BJP came to power in the state on its own in 2008 but lost to the ruling Congress in May 2013 Assembly elections following a split in its state leadership in 2012 when Yeddyurappa quit the party and formed Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP).
Along with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), the BJP on Saturday had won 43 out of the 59 seats, ousting the Left Front government that had ruled the state for about 25 years.