Assembly elections in Karnataka are due in May 2023.
Bengaluru:
Union Home Minister Amit Shah today chaired an important meeting with booth level workers in Karnataka to discuss the ground level preparations required ahead of the 2023 assembly elections in the state due in May. Other party leaders like Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and state Home Minister Araga Gyanendra, BJP general secretary and state in-charge Arun Singh, national general secretary BL Santhosh and national secretary CT Ravi were present.
The BJP has been making steady efforts to make inroads in the old Mysore region, a traditional bastion of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Congress. The ruling party got its first victory in the region only in 2019 when a JD(S) leader defected to join them.
On Friday, sharing the dais with former prime minister and JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda, Amit Shah inaugurated the mega dairy plant at Maddur taluk in Mandya district, part of the old Mysuru region, with a capacity to process around 14 lakh litres. is of. Of milk
Apart from the party’s general Hindutva and development pitch, Amit Shah also hit out at the Congress and said that Siddaramaiah, who served as the state’s chief minister from 2013 to 2018, had filed cases against the now-banned Islamic outfit Popular Front of India. Took it back , He said that it was only after BJP came to power in the state that PFI was banned and its leaders were arrested.
Mandya has seven assembly seats – six with the JD(S) and one with the BJP, which it won in a bypoll.
“Many chances have been given to JD(S)-Congress and they have been doing it alternately. This time lotus will bloom in Mandya and Mysuru. We will get majority,” he said.
He also addressed a large public meeting in the heartland of the Vokkaliga community, which accounts for at least 15 per cent of Karnataka’s population and is the second largest vote bank in the state after the Lingayats. He has clout in the old Mysore region, which has so far stayed away from the BJP.
The region includes districts such as Mandya, Mysuru, Hassan, Tumakuru, Chamarajanagar, Bengaluru Rural, Kolar and Chikkaballapur.
Shri Shah met Nirmalanandanatha Swamiji – the head priest of Adichunchanagiri Mutt. The impressive monastery is highly regarded in the old Mysuru region, especially by the Vokkaliga community.
Amit Shah also cleared the much-awaited cabinet expansion to accommodate dissident MLAs like KS Eshwarappa and Ramesh Jarkiholi just ahead of the 2023 elections.
Amit Shah took aim at both the rivals, saying that if the Congress won in the state, it would become the “ATM of Delhi”, and if the JD(S) did, it would become the “ATM of the family”.
The inauguration of the Ayodhya Ram temple in 2024, and the development of Kedarnath, Badrinath, and Kashi Vishwanath temples were other key issues with which Mr. Shah tried to win over the crowd gathered for the BJP’s Sankalp Yatra in Mandya.