Bengaluru: Appealing to his party leaders to unitedly work for coalition candidates, Janata Dal (S) patriarch, H.D. Deve Gowda on Sunday declared that the Lok Sabha poll is a battle between two ideologies and divisive and inclusive forces.
Speaking at a joint Congress-JD(S) rally here, Mr Gowda said, “We are fighting a tough battle against divisive forces. Be it Aravind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati or Chandrababu Naidu, they have all joined hands with the Congress only to prove a point that we are fighting for united India. This country belongs to every community - Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and several others and not the way the RSS, BJP or Mr Modi want it. This cannot be Hindu Rashtra.”
“Prime Minister Modi is relentlessly terming us (opposition) Mahamilavat, which is construed as ‘impure’ but we will prove him wrong. The time has come for both Congress and JD(S) workers to prove our detractors, wrong,” he said.
He added that whatever he had been doing ever since the coalition government was formed is in line with this thinking.
“Since the coalition government came into existence, I am striving hard to keep it united. The Lok Sabha election would be the best example of how the two parties can work and defeat the communal BJP in the state,” he said.
Training his guns on Mr Modi, Mr Gowda charged that his ill-informed policy on Kashmir has led to bloodshed there. "He has destroyed peace, Mr Modi is responsible for this," he said.
Taking a dig at Prime Minister Modi's Kisan Samman scheme, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy charged that Mr Modi has blatantly making false claims about his schemes as the state has not benefitted.
“So far only six farmer families in the state have become beneficiaries of this scheme whereas the farm loan waiver scheme launched by the state has benefited more than 15.8 lakh families already. But, Mr Modi feels our scheme is a lollipop compared to his. Now, it is for the people to decide which is a lollipop and which isn’t,” he said.
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