Hyderabad, May 13 (IANS): BJP's Telangana unit President Bandi Sanjay Kumar alleged on Saturday that Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao supported Congress in the Karnataka Assembly election.
Reacting to BJP's defeat in Assembly elections, he claimed that KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly called, played the role of a "big brother" in Karnataka.
Sanjay also alleged that efforts were being made to have Karnataka camp politics in Hyderabad with KCR's support. The BJP leader also predicted that Congress and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) will have an alliance for coming Assembly elections in Telangana.
Talking to reporters in Karimnagar, Sanjay claimed that all parties in Karnataka came together to fight the BJP. "It was the Congress which communalised politics in Karnataka. Congress has won with the support of one section. The SDPI and the AIMIM supported Congress," he said.
Sanjay, who is also a member of Lok Sabha from Karimnagar, also maintained that in any state's election, local factors play an important role. He claimed that the BJP did not lose its vote share in Karnataka. "In the previous elections, BJP had polled 36 per cent votes and this time too it secured 36 per cent votes. Congress party's vote share has gone up from 38 per cent to 43 per cent as there was a decline in JD-S vote share," he said.
The BJP leader did not agree that the Karnataka result will have a bearing on coming elections to Telangana assembly or 2024 Lok Sabha polls. "Will Congress come to power at the Centre by winning just one state," he asked.
He claimed that BJP's vote share in Telangana has gone up. He pointed out that out of five assembly by-elections, the BJP won three and came close to winning Munugode. The tally of the party in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) also increased from 4 to 48.
He was confident that a double engine government will come to power in Telangana. "If the BRS has the guts, let them make promises on the lines made by Congress in Karnataka," he said referring to promises for reservation for Muslims and ban on Bajrang Dal.