JOIN USVenkaiah dares Cong to hold early LS polls
BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday dared the Congress to hold the Lok Sabha elections, along with Assembly polls due in five states later this year, if it was really confident of victory after the recent success in Karnataka.
Addressing reporters, he said if the Congress is confident, it should conduct simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and the Assemblies in the five states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Delhi.
The Congress will be routed in the Lok Sabha elections due to its misrule at the Centre. It won in Karnataka because of the negative campaign against the BJP, he said.
Asked whether there was any chance of B S Yeddyurappa making a comeback to the BJP, Naidu said there was no such proposal from either side for now.
On ombudsman’s report
On party veteran L K Advani’s comments in his blog that he was not surprised with BJP’s loss in Karnataka, he said unlike the Congress which had not taken action against Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, despite a Lokayukta report against her, the BJP had acted on the ombudsman’s report on illegal mining in the State, by asking the then chief minister B S Yeddyurappa to step down.
Different yardsticks
“We have taken a principled decision (against Yeddyurappa) based on the Lokayukta report. Despite a massive scam, the Congress has made Virbhadra Singh the Himachal Pradesh chief minister. The BJP and the Congress have different yardsticks and standards,” he said.
The Congress had also not taken any action against former Karnataka chief ministers N Dharam Singh and S M Krishna, despite the Lokayukta report mentioning their names, he said.
On Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) getting 10 per cent of the votes in the very first election it fought, Venkaiah Naidu said BJP’s main rival was the Congress and soon people would realise there was no meaning in supporting the Karnataka Janata Party, as it would only lead to division of votes and help the Congress.