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Bangalore: BJP leader and Bangalore South Lok Sabha candidate H N Ananth Kumar said the countdown for the fall of the Siddaramaiah government had begun.
There are enough indications that Siddaramaiah will have to step down as the chief minister if the Congress’ seat tally in the State in the Lok Sabha polls is less than that of the BJP, he said.
Interacting with the media on Monday, Kumar alleged that Siddaramaiah was raising only State issues during his campaigning, as he had no answers to the misdeeds of the UPA government. He said the Lok Sabha elections should be fought on national issues and Siddaramaiah was making it look like municipal polls.
He said the chief minister was a disturbed person as he was aware that the people had decided to vote the UPA out of power. He countered senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi’s remarks that there was no Modi wave in the country, stating that the BJP and Modi were inseparable. “Just as Vajpayee and the BJP cannot be separated, the BJP and Modi are inseparable,” he said.
Joshi on Sunday disputed that there was a Modi wave in the country and said the Gujarat model of development touted by the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate could not be applied to all states.
He rubbished reports that Joshi and other senior leaders such as L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj were apprehensive that they would be sidelined if Modi became the prime minister. “Advani is our mentor and guide. Joshi has prepared our national manifesto. They cannot be sidelined… These talks are illusory,” Kumar felt.
On why Advani, Sushma and Arun Jaitley had stayed away from campaigning in Karnataka, Kumar said as the State was going to polls in a single phase, there was hardly any time to bring all the top leaders to canvass in the State. Advani was concentrating on Madhya Pradesh where the BJP has set a target of winning all the 29 seats, he said.
On Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod Muthalik’s allegations against him, Kumar said they were baseless and malicious.
