Shah, Rahul raise pitch on last day of campaign
19 Union ministers blitz state; Cong chief says battle is with RSS
BENGALURU: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, two of the party’s chief ministers, 19 Union ministers, and 12 other senior leaders of the party descended on Karnataka on Thursday, holding 53 road shows on the last day of campaigning for assembly polls in the state.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi made a pointed reference to this in a press conference on Thursday: “This is a fight between the spirit of Karnataka and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and we are very clear we don’t want a barrage of leaders from outside the state to come and fight for us.”
The Congress, in power in the state, and the BJP have been locked in an intense and bitter campaign.
The former has used “outsiders” in its campaign, including Gandhi, even his mother Sonia Gandhi, who campaigned after a hiatus of two years, but it has largely depended on incumbent chief minister Siddaramaiah.
The BJP, in contrast, has pulled out all the stops, using its star campaigner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and several cabinet ministers. Its local face, former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, whose temporary departure from the party was one reason for its loss in 2013, has been around, but just not as visible.
Prime Minister Modi, who held 21 rallies in the state between May 1 and May 9 — he was originally supposed to hold 15 — was not on the campaign trail on Thursday, but he was very much around, addressing Dalit workers of BJP in Karnataka through his Namo app. Gandhi has held 17 rallies in 10 days, and on May 8, in the course of an interaction in Bengaluru, said he was open to being the country’s Prime Minister in 2019 if the party had the mandate to choose the PM.
NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, three chief ministers, 19 Union ministers and 12 other senior leaders of the party descended on Karnataka on Thursday with 53 road shows on the last day of campaigning for the May 12 assembly polls.
“Road shows are also organised in 130 more constituencies involving state leaders,” a BJP leader said asking not to be named. It was the party’s final push ahead of the vote for the 224member Karnataka assembly.
The results will be declared on May 15. A party needs 113 seats for a majority, but several opinion polls have predicted a hung house. Thursday’s mobilisation was aimed at creating a buzz around the party that is hopeful of wresting the southern state from the Congress after five years and holding off a challenge from the Janata Dal (Secular).
Modi held 21 rallies between May 1 and 9, and BJP leaders say his tour of the state boosted the chances of victory for the BJP candidates.
The last-day blitz was planned to consolidate the party’s hold over traditional voters, and swing in its favour those who hadn’t made up their minds.
Shah held a road show in Badami, Bagalkot district, in north Karnataka, from where chief minister Siddaramaiah is contesting. The BJP has fielded its tribal face B Sriramulu against Siddaramaiah in Badami. The chief minister is also contesting from Chamundeshwari.
Badami was decked in saffron on Thursday with BJP flags fluttering all along the city’s roads.
Heaps of saffron colour marigold flowers were splashed on a bus converted to look like a chariot that carried Shah, BJP’S chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa and its Badami candidate Sriramulu.
“The writing on the wall is clear... it’s time for BJP with absolute majority in Karnataka,” Shah wrote on Twitter, sharing a picture of a differentlyabled person at the Badami road show.
In the past four months, Shah has travelled about 48,000 km to touch 117 assembly segments through public meetings and 22 road shows. Four hundred and fifty kilometres away from Badami, Union minister Ananth Kumar held five road shows during the day in and around state capital Bengaluru.
Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh led five separate road shows in the state capital. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was in Mysuru. Prominent among Union ministers who campaigned in the state on Thursday were defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, railway minister Piyush Goyal, petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, commerce and industries minister Suresh Prabhu. Others included DV Sadananda Gowda, Anantkumar Hegde (both from Karnataka), Himachal Pradesh MP Anurag Thakur and singer-politician Manoj Tiwari.