Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said that the Congress would win at least 15 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the State.
“We will win a minimum of 15 seats and the maximum will be 20 seats,” he said while addressing a meet-the-press programme organised by the Press Club of Bengaluru to mark the completion of the first year of the Congress government in the State.
“We are not claiming like the BJP that we are going to emerge victorious in all 28 parliamentary constituencies,” he said.
The BJP and JD (S) formed an alliance and contested in 25 and three seats respectively. The results will be declared on June 4.
On the possibility of a Cabinet reshuffle after the Lok Sabha results, the Chief Minister said there was no plan before him on that. However, the decision would be taken as per the directions of the party high command, Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
Speculations are rife in political circles that the Cabinet would be reshuffled based on the performance of the party in the Lok Sabha elections in different constituencies.
Earlier, the Chief Minister spelled out the government’s one-year achievements and said all the five guarantees had been implemented as promised by the party in its poll manifesto in 2023. The government would continue all the five guarantees for the full five-year term. “There is no question of stopping them,” he said.
The government had stated that close to 4.6 crore people had been receiving benefits under the guarantees. Each family had been receiving benefits of ₹60,000 per year.
Under the Shakti programme, women had been travelling for free in government buses to pilgrimage centres and also for visiting relatives. The government had been crediting each woman head of the households ₹2,000 per month under the Gruha Lakshmi scheme and many women used the money to purchase gold, refrigerators, ceiling fans, and other household items, the Chief Minister said.
A sum of ₹36,000 crore had been spent on these schemes in 2023-24 and ₹52,000 crore had been allocated in 2024-25 in the State Budget for them, he pointed out. No development work had been stalled as alleged by the BJP and JD (S), he claimed.
Muslim quota
On the allegation that the State government had taken away some percentage of reservation from OBCs and given it to Muslims, he said Muslims had been given 4 per cent reservation in government jobs and admissions in educational institutions based on the Chinnappa Reddy Commission recommendations since 1994.
The Basavaraj Bommai government had withdrawn the reservation given to Muslims to increase the quota of Lingayats and Vokkaligas. But the Bommai government in an affidavit in the Supreme Court maintained that it had not scrapped the reservation for Muslims. The Muslim quota (4%) continued in the State, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been levelling false charges against the Congress government on providing quota for Muslims to secure votes of the Hindus, Mr. Siddaramaiah charged.
