Virtually sounding the 2018 poll bugle, BJP national president Amit Shah on Sunday labelled Karnataka the “most corrupt” State in the country, calling for bringing his party back to power.
Inaugurating the party’s Ekta Samavesha organised by Other Backward Classes (OBC) Morcha in the city by beating the “nagada” (drum), Mr. Shah said: “This nagada beating is to put the last nail in the Congress government’s coffin.”
Exhorting people to ensure BJP returns to power under former Chief Minister and State BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa, Mr. Shah said: “Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched 54 welfare schemes for the poor, the benefits of these schemes are not reaching people in Karnataka because the State government is corrupt.”
Differences buried
The programme saw the entire spectrum of State party leaders, irrespective of their differences, appearing together. Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council K.S. Eshwarappa, who in recent times locked horns with Mr. Yeddyurappa over his “style of functioning”, addressed him as the “future Chief Minister of Karnataka” and urged people to bring him to power. Mr. Eshwarappa, who recently launched Sangolli Rayanna Brigade as an OBC platform that supports the BJP outside of the party forum, challenged the Congress government to come out with details of funds allocated for the backward classes so far.
“If they have spent even a rupee more than what we did in our tenure, I will retire from politics,” Mr. Eshwarappa said, challenging the image of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as an “unrivalled OBC leader”.
Union Ministers D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Ananth Kumar and other BJP leaders, including Nirmala Sitharaman, B.P. Singh Baghera, Muralidhar Rao, Shobha Karandlaje, Arvind Limbavali, Jagadish Shettar, and others spoke.
