MYSURU, VIJAYAPURA: The JDS bastion Mandya turned saffron with BJP erecting flags and buntings to welcome UP CM Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday. BJP leaders had managed to bring hundreds of people from across the state to welcome the ‘Bulldozer Baba’ to raze the JDS fortress in the May 10 polls.
To connect voters of the Vokkailga-dominated Mandya with UP, BJP harped that both Sri Adichunchanagiri Mutt seer Nirmalanandanatha Swami and Adityanath, who is also UP’s Gorakhpur Mutt head priest, are from the same ‘Natha Parampare’.
He joined Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambareesh and BJP candidates of all seven segments from the district for a roadshow.
At the public rally at Silver Jubilee Park, Adityanath said the country was split in the name of religion in 1947 and BJP will not allow the nation to be divided again on reservation based on religion.
Attacking Congress, he said the Congress government’s Five-Year Plan flopped and projects never saw the light of day and the country witnessed the highest number of farmer suicides. “But the Modi-led government has completed projects before the deadline. Due to the double-engine government, there is security and development in UP and no curfews in the last six years,” he said.
Hailing Modi for banning the Popular Front of India (PFI), he said Congress supported PFI and initiated reservations on the lines of religion that were unconstitutional. “Reservation based on religion is unconstitutional.”
He said the relationship between UP and Karnataka dates back to Treta Yuga when Lord Sri Rama during Vanasava met Bajarangabali Hanuman in Karnataka. He ended his speech by reciting the first two lines of Naada Geethe.
Addressing another rally in Vijayapura, Yogi claimed that his government has eliminated all goonda and anti-social elements after coming to power. Campaigning for the party candidate, SK Bellubbi in Basavana Bagewadi taluk, he said the New Educational Policy launched by the BJP government allows graduate students to write exams in their local language.
Earlier in Mandya, Sumalatha attacked JDS saying, “There was not a single work initiated in the district. It was I who started the process to relaunch the Mysugar factory in Mandya and PSSK in Pandavapura. JDS leaders are wishing for a hung Assembly so that they can again see a party chief minister. They only want the development of their families and not the progress of the people.”