Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is campaigning extensively across Karnataka, is confident of BJP winning the May 10 Assembly elections and returning to power in the state for the second consecutive term.
In an exclusive interview with The New Indian Express, he said, “We will win a minimum of 15 seats more than the halfway mark (113). The reason for this is that during four years of our government, we have been implementing Modiji’s programmes on the ground successfully. That has created a class of beneficiaries of all Central government programmes. Even if you remove overlapping, it will be around 70 lakh families (who have benefited from government schemes). All traditional calculations that look at the movement of Vokkaligas or Lingayats or Kurabas will be proved wrong.”
Shah said he is involved in all the elections in the last nine years and almost all surveys predict a defeat for BJP. “That is because the club of thinkers and those who work on the ground are different.” The club of thinkers defeats us, but the team that works on the ground ensures the party’s victory, he added confidently.
On BJP’s strategy of denying tickets to many seniors and fielding new faces, apparently to beat anti-incumbency, he said that in the last 10 elections, the party has always changed 30 per cent of its candidates.
Asked whether Lingayats are moving away from BJP, he replied in the negative and said both former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi, who are Lingayats and have quit the saffron party to join Congress, will lose by a big margin.
“Take it from me. Shettar’s margin of defeat will be double the margin of his victory (in the last election) as Hubballi always voted for BJP and not any individual. Hubballi is our fortress,” he added.
When pointed out that Karnataka has never voted a party to power for the second consecutive term, he said a similar trend was seen in UP, Assam and Manipur. “We broke those records. That is our record and that is why we are confident.”