Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Mar 25: Former BJP leader Srikar Prabhu, who was expelled from the party in 2014 and has now decided to contest the upcoming Assembly elections as an independent candidate from Mangaluru South constituency, on Sunday March 25 opened his election campaign office at Kadri and symbolically initiated his campaign with a public meet at the adjacent CV Nayak Hall.
Addressing the gathering, Srikar Prabhu said, "I did not engage in any anti-party activities when I was in the BJP. I am not the kind of person who cheats his mother. In 2014, the then BJP state president Prahlad Joshi expelled me from the party without giving any reason or even a show-cause notice, despite the fact that I had served the party for 25 years. I wrote several letters to the party seeking explanation but got no response.
"I will contest the upcoming elections on the BJP principles I have imbibed. I am not angry with the BJP, but with the system in the party. Whether I am member or not, I will remain a BJP worker and die as one," he said.
"No political party is working to resolve the problems facing the people. People become MPs, MLAs and ministers, but do they do anything for the public? They do not. Only when you are worker of the party can you do real work," he added.
"The BJP is not functioning well. A handful of the BJP leaders had no qualms about removing someone who had dedicated his entire life to the party. Such people need to be taught a lesson, not by me but by the people. I alone cannot do anything. The same may happen to some other worker tomorrow. Party workers are the life of any party, and if they do wrong, the leaders may point it out, but it is not right to expel them. But these BJP leaders have no courage to point out mistakes - what can they say anyway when no mistake was made at all?" he said.
"Every worker of the RSS has sacrificed for the Sangha, they have gone to jail and even lost their lives. I still have respect for the BJP as a party, but there is a systemic fault with the BJP, where a worker does not even get an opportunity to seek forgiveness or tender apology. They could not even respond to a party worker's problem, how can they be expected to do justice to six crore people of the state?" he questioned.
Yathish Kumar, R K Shastri, Jayaprakash Rao and others also spoke on the occasion extolling Srikar Prabhu.
Nithin Suvarna proposed the vote of thanks.