Mangalore:While a prominent RSS leader claimed that enlightened voters in the saffron bastion were influenced by the canards spread by rivals, a former Sangh Parivar man says BJP failed to decipher what the common man wanted – good administration.
RSS supremo Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, though at first declined to comment on the dismal results of BJP in the coast, especially Dakshina Kannada district, felt that the electorate did not value development work carried out by the BJP.
“The development carried out during the BJP rule benefitted most. But they (voters) got carried away by rumours spread by the opposition. Money also played a prominent part in the defeat of BJP,” he said. Did he regard the vigilante attacks and instances of moral policing may have turned the tide against the BJP? “I don’t see any other reason than mentioned before,” he asserted.
But Urimajalu Ram Bhat, mentor of former chief minister Sadananda Gowda, said: “It is the RSS interference which paved the way for this slide in the coast. RSS should have played its part as an advisory body and not interfered in party affairs and in selection of candidates. “The result is for us to see. The party has been taught a lesson which they will not forget in a hurry,” Bhat, who considers himself as a “true BJP man” added. “BJP has to start from scratch. They have another test coming to show that they have improved. Now they have to demonstrate that they have integrity and are clean,” he notes.
~ TNN
