BELAGAVI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said if Congress comes to power, Karnataka will be “afflicted with riots” and dynastic politics will hit its peak. The state will go on the reverse gear and witness rampant corruption if Congress is elected, he cautioned voters.
Addressing a public rally at Terdal in Belagavi district, he asserted that BJP will form the government in the state again, and this is an election that will hand over the development agenda of the state into the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“It will be a Nava Karnataka election. The people should vote and elect a party which can give a sincere and development-oriented government,’’ he said.
Without taking the name of former chief minister Jagadish Shettar, he said that a leader of the party recently joined Congress, insulting Lingayat sentiments. “Congress joined hands with JDS to unseat then chief minister BS Yediyurappa. Now, you want to move forward with the help of some of our leaders, but the people of Karnataka, especially those from ‘Kittur Karnataka’ region, will not tolerate it,” he said.
The BJP government increased the quota for SC/STs, Lingayats and Vokkaligas by scrapping the reservation given to the Muslim community, he said. But Congress, which indulges in ‘vote-bank’ politics, is against the ban on the radical Popular Front of India (PFI), he added.
Accusing Congress of not implementing the Kalasa-Banduri water project despite being in power at the Centre, in Karnataka and Goa, Shah charged that the national party in 60 years of its rule could not achieve even 10 per cent of what BJP has done in the last nine years.
He appealed to the people not to vote for JDS as “every vote to them will eventually go to Congress”. “If people don’t want Congress, then they should vote for the BJP directly so that the state can be taken forward,” he said.