AICC to allow local units of PCCs to choose alliance partners for assembly elections
KALABURAGI: AICC will allow the local units of PCCs to have a seat-sharing alliance with I. N. D. I. A. partners and to discuss with those parties on how many seats should be shared with them in the ensuing Assembly Elections to 5 States, said AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge here on Wednesday.
Addressing journalists, Kharge denied that a rift has arisen between the Congress Party and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh with regard to the sharing of seats in Assembly Elections. The AICC President said that let SP President Akhilesh Yadav tell in how many seats his party had won in the previous Assembly Elections and on what basis he is asking for more seats.
Kharge said that the anti-incumbency wave is clearly visible in all the States ruled by the BJP where elections are due. People are fed up with the false promises given by the BJP. None of the promises given in the previous elections were fulfilled by BJP, he blamed. The AICC President expressed his confidence that the Congress Party would win in all 5 States and would form the government.
When asked whether the elections to the Assembly Elections to the 5 States are an indication of the mood of the voters about the ruling party, Kharge said that the issues would be different for different States and the issues for the Assembly Elections are different and for the Lok Sabha Elections are different.
He blamed the BJP for using its officers including those working in the ministries to canvass the programmes in the elections, let BJP use its Party workers and leaders for election purposes, but it is completely wrong to use the officers. The public is watching everything, he said.
On the charges of opposition parties that the Congress Party is using Karnataka as an ATM for funding to the elections of 5 States, the AICC President said that the Congress Party came to power in Karnataka just a few months ago. How can it become an ATM to fund elections to 5 States, where is the revenue, he questioned. Union government is using all its agencies like Ed, IT, CBI etc to threaten the leaders of non-Congress Party, he blamed.
Regarding Karnataka, Kharge said that the BJP is levelling false charges against the ministers of the Congress Party in Karnataka just to defame them as well as to the Congress Party to get political gains. People were watching everything, he said.
Minister for Medical Education Dr. Sharanaprakash Patil and Minister for forest and Ecology Eshwar Khandre were present.
No change of KPCC chief before LS polls: Khandre
The All India Congress Committee has already informed that there will be no change of guard in the party’s Karnataka unit, said KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre here on Wednesday.
“Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar will continue as KPCC chief till the 2024 Lok Sabha elections conclude,” he told reporters.
He said the AICC wants a change in the working presidents of the state unit, who are ministers. “This will take place shortly,” Khandre said.
Asked about BJP’s demand seeking a CBI inquiry on the suicides of two BJP workers (one in Sedam taluk and another in Chittapur taluk) alleging possibility of influencing the police by ministers Sharana Prakash Patil and Priyank Kharge, Khandre said saffron party leaders have the habit of committing illegal acts and pointing fingers at the Congress.
“They are just sitting on their hands. The party has failed to appoint a leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly in the last six months, but is busy blaming the Congress,” the minister said.
Khandre, who is the District in-charge Minister of Bidar district, termed Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizer Bhagawant Khuba as a “non-functioning minister”. He has been making promises to the people of Bidar for the last nine years that the central government would sanction a full fledged Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering. Now the Union government sanctioned the institute to Bidar only as the Lok Sabha elections are approaching.
“Though the state government is giving 10 acres of land and 50 per cent of the establishment expenditure of Rs 90 crore, only one course of skill development has started in CIPET on the premises of the Veterinary University, Bidar,” Khandre blamed.