Siddaramaiah takes on ex-men: Get bypoll ready, teach deserters a lesson

Bengaluru: Leaders of the state unit of Congress on Saturday picked Hosakote, the home turf of country's richest but disqualified legislator, M T B Nagaraj, to launch the campaign for forthcoming bypolls to fill 15 of the 17 vacancies in the lower House.

The schedule for bypolls was announced by the Election Commission halfway through a rally organized by the leaders with legislature party, Siddaramaiah, asking party workers to take up the challenge of defeating all those who deserted the party to reduce the coalition to minority entity, paving the way for BJP to return to power. Mr Siddaramaiah blew the poll bugle, literally, while KPCC president, Dinesh Gundurao, used a conch to symbolically announce the party's battle readiness.

Lambasting his bête noir, former chief minister, H. D. Kumaraswamy, Mr Siddaramaiah said: “Voters of this state are very clever and know what is best for them. The electorate of Mandya could not be bought over despite many attempts and they ensured the victory of independent candidate Sumalata Ambareesh during Lok Sabha elections. I am absolutely sure that people of Hosakote too will teach a lesson to a traitor like M.T.B. Nagaraj.”

Mr Dinesh Gundurao, exuded confidence that his party would win all 15 Assembly seats during an interaction with the media.

“We have started our campaign. In fact we had commenced it even before our first rally in Hosakote. Hence we are ahead of our rivals, and as a result of this, we are confident of winning all seats,” he added.

In response to a question, Mr Rao said that there was no question of sidelining any leader including former deputy chief minister G. Parameshwar.

“Like in every family, we too have some differences of opinion. I don't deny that, but that does not mean we mean we are completely detached from each other. There is lot of scope in our party, where we all can sit, discuss and sort out our differences of opinion on our own,” he added.