Janardhana Poojary predicts huge victory for Congress

Former Union Minister and veteran Congress leader B Janardana Poojary reposed faith in Congress party sweeping the polls with a huge victory in all the eight legislative assemblies of the district. He predicted that Siddaramaiah will make it to the Chief Minister’s post again.

Addressing reporters at the Mangaluru South Congress election office at Mallikatta here on Wednesday, he said that the Congress will emerge victorious in the state as well.

Poojary also accused the BJP leaders of levelling charges against J R Lobo by stating that he was involved in caste politics in connection with the naming of Light House Hill Road after Vijaya Bank former Chairman Mulki Sundaram Shetty. BJP has been carrying out false propaganda against Lobo saying that he has been batting for a particular religion by ignoring the feelings of Bunt community, which is not true.

Lobo has been respecting all communities and faiths, Poojary said. He further stated that Congress party too has not confined itself to a particular caste. The party comprises members from all castes and religions. The former Union Minister cited an example of himself and elaborated that he had made people from the Bunt community the chairmen of various nationalised banks when he was the Union Minister of Finance.

In reply to a query, Poojary said that he has been quite consistent in his opinion on Chief Minister Siddaramaiah that he would dent the image of Congress party if he behaves arrogantly. "Whenever I felt he was going wrong, I did criticise the stand taken by the Siddaramaiah government and I will continue to do so. But, I criticised the state government for the welfare of the CM and the state," he clarified. He opined that serving party tickets to Ashok Kheny and H Y Meti was not right on the part of Congress. In reply to another query, he said that Narendra Modi or Amit Shah cannot cause any harm to the existence of Congress.

MCC Mayor Bhasker K, MCC council chief whip Shashidhar Hegde, MUDA Chairman Suresh Ballal, former MLA Vijaykumar Shetty and leader Muhammed Masood were present.

Poojary got upset when KPCC vice-president U B Venkatesh and District Congress Committee president Harish Kumar, who were present on the stage along with Poojary, left in the middle of the press meet. When Poojary asked why did they leave the venue, party leaders said that Venkatesh and Harish Kumar have gone to meet former Union Minister P Chidambaram who was in the district for election-related programmes.

A furious Poojary asked the other Congress leaders in Tulu whether the two leaders did not have any courtesy left. “If at all they had to go to see Chidambaram, why did they come to the press conference at all,” Poojary asked.