Hubballi-Dharwad Central Congress candidate Jagadish Shettar on Sunday met party leader Rahul Gandhi at Hubballi airport. The impromptu meeting of the leaders went for over half an hour.
The leaders, it is said, discussed the ‘neglect of Lingayat leaders’ in the BJP. Shettar was accompanied by Hubballi-Dharwad East Congress MLA Prasad Abbayya.
“Rahul Gandhi and I discussed the ‘sidelining of Lingayat leaders by the BJP’ and the developments in Karnataka politics. He invited me to attend his Hanagal programme,” Shettar told reporters after his meeting with the former AICC president.
“I am getting calls from various constituencies in north Karnataka for campaigning. AICC general secretary K C Venugopal has said that he would prepare a schedule in this regard after discussing it with me. Rahul Gandhi is likely to campaign in Hubballi. The party has issued tickets to more than 50 Lingayat candidates. There is a wave in favour of the Congress in the state,” he said.
Denied a ticket for the seventh term, Shettar joined the Congress, saying he was humiliated by a section of state BJP leaders in the central committee.
Published 23 April 2023, 16:50 IST