M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, is one of the best known political leaders from the Hyderabad-Karnataka region. He believes the party still holds sway in the region.
How do you see your party’s prospects in HK region?
We will bag more seats in this election than we did in 2013. The special status offered to the region by inserting Clause J to Article 371 of the Constitution is our greatest achievement. The same demand had been turned down by the BJP by saying that it would open a Pandora’s box. It was a non-violent revolution that opened the floodgates of development in the region. Thanks to the reservations under the Article, the region is getting 700 medical seats compared with just around 100 before the special status. All applicants from the region are getting engineering seats and around 30,000 people have got government jobs in the past four years. We have got ₹4,600-crore non-lapsable special grants for development.
What is your take on pre-poll surveys that predict a hung Assembly?
Considering the kind of development initiatives and welfare programmes that we have implemented and the kind of stable government we have given in the State, there shouldn’t be a hung Assembly. Popular programmes such as Anna Bhagya have directly benefited millions of families. Unlike the previous BJP regime, when governance was paralysed by internal conflicts that led the State to see three Chief Ministers in five years, we have given stable governance. Unlike the previous BJP regime, when corruption ruled the roost leading to the surfacing of multiple scams and culminated in multiple BJP leaders including the Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa landing in jail, we have given a clean governance.
The BJP says it is making gains in this culturally diverse and impoverished region.
No. It is attempting to rupture India’s secular social fabric and disturb the tradition of peaceful coexistence of communities with different cultural practices. It is a party of corporate bigwigs and not of the common people. All their policies are oriented to safeguard the interests of corporate and not to the toiling masses. They don’t have money to waive farm loans borrowed from nationalised and scheduled banks, but do have enough to write off corporate loans. They are against democracy and believe in a totalitarian regime that controls even judiciary, press and autonomous institutions. They have fulfilled none of their pre-poll promises... The measures such as demonetisation have devastated the country’s economy with common people at the receiving end.
