Mumbai (IANS) | Hailing Congress’ landslide victory in Karnataka, Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar said the people of the neighboring state have rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party’s politics of money, caste and religion. Talking to the media, Sharad Pawar said that the people of Karnataka have taught a lesson to the divisive politics of the BJP and handed over power to the Congress. Pawar predicted that the same result would be seen in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well!
He said that people are fed up with the politics of ‘Khokha’ (bid of crores of rupees) being followed by the saffron party. Pawar said, though the BJP was in power there, all the top leaders of the government and senior leaders of the party had gone there to campaign. We suspected that the money used by him would go against him and it did.
He regretted the trend of BJP usurping power in a state where it is not elected by breaking the MLAs of other parties. Which has been rejected by the public. Pawar said that he did this in Karnataka, he toppled the previous government by breaking the MLAs of the previous government to grab power.
The same happened earlier in Maharashtra and Goa, where the BJP assumed power in a similar manner. He further said that this new trend started by the BJP using the government machinery and its resources is a matter of great concern. However, people do not support such politics of money and muscle power. This has become clear from the results of Karnataka.
On the performance of the Congress, Pawar said that the Congress has managed to get more than double the number of seats than the BJP. This is an indication that the people of Karnataka had made up their mind to defeat the BJP completely.
He expressed hope that now people will teach a lesson to those who misrule the country and similar trend will be seen all over India. With Karnataka out of BJP control, Pawar said that the saffron party has now been wiped out from the whole of South India.
Pawar said, apart from Delhi, Jharkhand, Punjab, West Bengal, Bihar, Rajasthan, there is no BJP government in Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu. This is a precursor to the Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2024.
He said that raising issues like Bajrangbali was a big mistake on the part of BJP, which seems to have backfired as now people have given a befitting reply.
On the NCP contesting against the Congress in Karnataka, Pawar clarified that it had fielded seven candidates only to enter that state. We are not a powerful party in Karnataka, only one of our candidates has won. We needed to enter the state and for that we had to contest elections.
–IANS
