Udupi-Chikkamagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje said on Monday that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win more than 22 seats in the State and retain the Udupi-Chikkamagaluru parliamentary seat with a big majority.
Speaking to presspersons here, Ms. Karandlaje said that Udupi-Chikkamagaluru parliamentary constituency was a bastion of the BJP. The fact that the Congress had to part with the Udupi-Chikkamagaluru seat to the Janata Dal (Secular) showed how much that party’s status had diminished.
It was the Chikkamagaluru parliamentary seat (Udupi-Chikkamagaluru seat after the delimitation exercise) that had given political rebirth to no less a person than the former Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi during the by-polls in 1978. But the Congress had done little to retain the seat with it during its seat-sharing talks with the Janata Dal(S), she said.
On the efforts being made by Janata Dal(S) to make the Congress leader Pramod Madhwaraj the candidate of the coalition parties for Udupi-Chikkamagaluru parliamentary seat, Ms. Karandlaje said: “It is an internal matter between the Janata Dal(S) and the Congress. Now, the Janata Dal(S) intends to give ticket to those who migrate from the Congress.”
To a query, Ms. Karandlaje said that the list of BJP candidates which was scheduled to be finalised and announced on Monday had been postponed to Tuesday due to the passing away of the Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. “Once the list of our candidates is announced, all party workers will work like soldiers for the victory of the party,” she said.
