Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Dec 20: State Chief Minister, B S Yeddyurappa, said that he has accepted the coming zilla and taluk panchayat elections as the litmus test for his administration, and also as a challenge posed to him by the opposition parties in the state. At the same time, he invited the opposition to show their might in the elections. He was addressing a meeting of BJP activists convened in the city on Sunday December 19.

“If there are allegations of corruption against my government, I request the opposition parties to list them through printed pamphlets and distribute the same to the people. We have already shared with the people information about our achievements during the last 30 months. I am sure that once the results of these elections come out, top leaders of the Congress and JDS will find it embarrassing to come out of their houses,” he ridiculed.

He alleged that the Congress and the JDS have hatched a conspiracy to defame his government, knowing fully well that they have no prospects of coming to power here in the next two decades, if the BJP government continues to register development at the present pace. He accused the opposition leaders of confusing the people and blocking the information about the development achieved by the government from the people.

He charged the Congress party of having no moral right to speak about corruption, as it is involved with huge scams like the telecom scam, Commonwealth Games scam, Nira Radia Tapes, among others. He also accused the Congress party of not having the capacity of conduct even a month of parliamentary session.

He expressed his wish that Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts should emerge as models for other districts in the state in providing houses to the homeless. He asked the party activists to form a team of 20 – 25 youth at the revenue division level to ensure that the benefits of the government schemes reach the common people without the intervention of middlemen. He said the state government will provide enough money to these two districts.

About the promise he has extracted from the party leaders that the BJP will bag majority in the coming elections in the coast, he asked the activists to work hard to ensure that no one else bags even a single seat, and that every one who fights against the BJP candidates, loses his/her deposit.

State government’s special representative in New Delhi, Dhananjaya Kumar, also addressed the meeting. Zilla panchayat (ZP) president, Santosh Kumar Bhandary, who joined the BJP, said that he had not crossed over from the Congress to bag a seat. “Let us work to decimate Congress from the district,” he said. Former ZP president, Sucharita Shetty, said that he had joined the BJP to be a party to the development programmes of the BJP government. Zilla panchayat standing committee chairman, Sadanand Malli, who joined the BJP, and district BJP president, Padmanabha Kottary, also exhorted the activists to put in their best to ensure victory for the party candidates.

District in-charge minister, Krishna J Palemar, MP, Nalinkumar Kateel, MLAs, Mallika Prasad, S Angara, MLCs, Capt Ganesh Karnik and Kota Srinivas Poojary, Coastal Development Authority chairman, B Nagaraj Shetty, city mayor, Rajani Dugganna, office bearers of the party, and several other dignitaries were present.

MLA, N Yogish Bhat, welcomed. A number of leaders from other parties joined the BJP on this occasion.