Karnataka

It’s Cong vs the rest: Siddaramaiah

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Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is neither ready to admit that the results of the Lok Sabha elections will be a referendum on his governance nor believe that it will be a fight between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. For him, the battle is between the Congress and the rest.

Siddaramaiah on Monday said people usually voted for a party and not an individual. There is no Modi wave in the State, as claimed by the BJP. Also, there is no presence of the Aam Aadmi Party in Karnataka because regional parties are not favoured here. People are intelligent and they go by the principles of a party. The Congress will win not less than 18 to 20 seats, he claimed.

Siddaramaiah has been so busy giving interviews to the media for the last two days in Bangalore that he had even skipped the event when high-profile candidate Nandan Nilekani joined the Congress on Sunday.

To a question whether some of the ‘Bhagya’ schemes launched by him would help the party improve its poll prospects, he said, “My schemes will fetch votes for the party. I will seek positive votes. However, the results will not be a referendum. The government can be tested only if it completes five years, but not now. I have completed just 10 months in office. The Lok Sabha elections are fought on national issues. The trend the State saw in the by-elections held for the Lok Sabha seats will continue in the coming elections,” he said.

To a question whether the Congress would pack off H D Deve Gowda of the JD(S) from his home turf Hassan this time, Siddaramaiah said, “All I can say is I am confident that our candidate will win.”

Asked how much freedom he had to choose the candidates, the chief minister said the Congress did not give such freedom. However, by and large, the views of the leaders were taken into consideration by the party.

Has the primaries mode of selecting candidates appealed to him? He did not offer a directly reply, but said it was an experiment and the results had to be watched. Commenting on the return of Yeddyurappa to the BJP and the large crowd attracted by Modi during public rallies, Siddaramaiah said the return of Yeddyurappa would prove to be a negative factor for the BJP. “You can gather people by spending money. If money and vehicles are provided, people do come. It is not a big task to mobilise people. The BJP is spending a lot of money to draw crowds and it is also exaggerating the numbers.”

Asked how he would defend the corruption charges faced by the UPA, he said the Manmohan Singh government was not facing any serious allegations. No charges levelled against any minister have been proved.

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