Karnataka elections; PM Modi tells BJP workers: ‘Development our only agenda’
Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today that development was his only agenda for the Karnataka Assembly polls, and accused the state’s Congress government of stalling its progress.
Modi also accused the Congress of playing caste politics during elections. “BJP has a three-pronged agenda for Karnataka- development, fast-paced development, all-round development,” he told BJP leaders, office bearers and party workers via video conference.
“Our agenda is vikas (development), vikas, vikas,” he said.
“When elections come, they offer lollipops to a caste group so they get busy with it. But the BJP’s priority is politics of development,” he said.
The Siddaramaiah government recently recommended religious minority status for the Lingayat and its sub-group Veershaiva Lingayat community. The move is seen as an attempt to divide the Lingayats, the bedrock of the BJP’s voter base in the state.
The Congress government in Karnataka, he alleged, was responsible for the tardy progress of the state.
With pre-poll surveys projecting a hung Assembly, Modi asked the voters to elect a BJP government with an absolute majority to give a fillip to development.
Modi connects with Karnataka BJP cadres through mobile app
Bengaluru, April 26 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday connected with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates and cadres through his personal mobile app ahead of the May 12 Karnataka assembly elections.
Modi made use of his ‘Narendra Modi’ mobile application to connect with BJP’s 224 nominees for the polls, apart from hundreds of party cadres and booth-level workers in the poll-bound southern state.
He told them how to campaign for the elections and to harp on development for the party’s victory.
“We must fight the upcoming elections on the issues of development and win people’s trust,” Modi told the party members from New Delhi through a 40-minute long digital interaction in chaste Hindi.
The party’s agenda for Karnataka was development — “fast-paced” and “all-round”, he stressed.
“Our (party’s) importance is for politics of development,” he said.
Accusing the ruling Congress in the state of spreading lies and making false promises to people in order to win the votes, the Prime Minister insisted the party workers stand their ground and expose the lies.
“The Congress has resorted to rampant lying after a series of defeats in elections. BJP workers must stand their ground, expose their lies and also fight their means of deceiving people by hiring foreign agencies.”
Responding to a question from Karkala in Udupi district, by sitting MLA and candidate V. Sunil Kumar, on how the party members should campaign, Modi said the party must ensure that as many women cadres are employed as men.
“Let each of the party worker attend few families of each constituency, by visiting them and listening to their problems and being with them till the time they vote. There’s no way we cannot win the election with this approach,” he said.
The party workers should also wear the BJP’s symbol ‘Lotus’ with pride till May 12, when the state elections will be held, he said.
Karnataka has chosen a change in its government and wants to ride on the plank of development as the rest of the country, Modi added.
“Our job as party members is to make sure that we reach each and every voter in the state.”
Modi is likely to visit the state tentatively from May 1 to hold over 10 rallies across the state before the election, the party’s state spokesman S. Shantharam told IANS earlier.
He is expected to visit each of the state’s four regions — coastal, north, central and south — besides Bengaluru and Mysuru, addressing at least two to three rallies a day till May 10.
Polling will be held in a single phase for all the 224 assembly seats, including 36 reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 15 for Scheduled Tribes (STs). The votes will be counted on May 15.
