‘Middle class moving away from Modi’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is worried that the middle class, considered as a major part of his core support base, is weaning away from the saffron party, senior Congress leader BK Chandrashekar has said.

“Restlessness in the middle class coupled with lawlessness is why the middle class is moving away from Modi,” Chandrashekhar told reporters at the Congress headquarters here, citing the BJP’s defeat in the recent Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls as examples.

The former minister charged that Modi had “outsourced” the task of polarisation to the likes of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Ministers Ananthkumar Hegde and Giriraj Singh.

“Modi was supremely confident that Yogi’s hatred toward Muslims would help. What else can explain Yogi being projected higher than (BJP national president) Amit Shah in the recent campaigns? But it failed,” he said.

Chandrashekhar, who is also the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president, said fringe groups had been given a “free hand.” He said about 60-70 deaths due to lynchings had been reported till the end of July this year.

“Instead of creating 2 crore jobs every year as promised, about 84 lakh jobs had been diminished until last year. It’s for certain that the BJP’s narrative will not be based on development, at least not in Karnataka,” he said.