Deccan Herald
Mangalore, Jan 8: Coming down heavily on Congress leaders, former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa said vote bank politics was there behind the provocative statements of Congress leaders like Veerappa Moily and Janardhana Poojary regarding underworld activities of coastal area and cattle trafficking.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, he said the statements of such leaders with the intention of satisfying minorities were disrespecting the Hindus, who were in majority. If this trend doesn’t end, they must be held responsible for the future confrontations, he warned.
Mr Yeddyurappa urged that the Congress people, who had compared Sonia Gandhi with Goddess Durga, should apologise with the Hindus.
“Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh verdicts have taught lessons to the ‘mother-children’ party. The ‘father-children’ party will also face the same result in Karataka,” he said and added that BJP would contest alone in all Assembly constituencies in the forthcoming elections, and would not make alliances with any political parties.
The former CM said though BJP wished that President’s Rule should end at the earliest, the Congress did not want it to happen. The Congress leaders are trying to postpone the elections, he criticised.
He challenged Congress men to come for an open discussion regarding the achievements of the previous co-alition government. There is no meaning in the allegation that BJP was going for elections on a sympathy basis. The pro-people programmes represented in the previous budget are the defence for our party. First development, next sympathy, he stressed.
Mr Yeddyurappa said the priorities of BJP were to give free electricity to the farmers possessing irrigation pumpsets of less than 10 HP and providing loans to the farmers at 10 per cent.
He urged the Governor to personally visit Mangalore and assess the actual situation of the coastal region and the increasing anti-national activities. He also condemned the injustice done on Kannadigas in connection with recruitments of Railway Department.
Former ministers Nagaraj Shetty, Dr V S Acharya, former MLAs Yogish Bhat, Krishna Palemar, MLC Ganesh Karnik were present.