Bengaluru: Delighted with his party’s victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, state BJP chief B.S. Yeddyurappa said on Monday that PM Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah would now focus on Karnataka, which goes to polls in 2018.
Speaking to reporters here, Mr Yeddyurappa observed with satisfaction that after the CPI(M), which ruled West Bengal for over 25 years, the BJP was now in power in Gujarat for six consecutive terms. The Gujarat win had boosted the morale of the party in the state and it would bag over 150 seats in Karnataka, the BJP chief asserted. He claimed that several leaders from the Congress and JD(S) were willing to join his party in the run-up to the elections.
Calling CM Siddaramaiah’s claim of EVMs being tampered with in Gujarat as childish, he recalled that the Congress too had won elections where EVMs were used in the past and did not see why it was finding fault with them now.
Taking a softer stance on the Lingayats’ demand for a separate religious status, he said the party would abide by the decision of the Akhila Bharatiya Veerashaiva Mahasabha and the Siddaganaga pontiff on the issue.
Mr Yeddyurappa dismissed the suggestion that the BJP could feel the heat of Lingayat anger in the coming state polls owing to its opposition to its move to break away from the Hindu religion.
He was emphatic that the Lingayat issue could not be compared with that of the powerful Patidar community, which turned against the party in Gujarat for denying it reservation. “We cannot compare the Paridar issue with that of the Lingayats here. Both are different,” he contended.
