Taking a dig at PM Modi for launching his Karnataka campaign from the Gulbarga Lok Sabha seat, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Sunday said that the Congress would wrest 20 seats from the BJP in Karnataka this time, including Gulbarga.
The BJP had won 25, while the Congress, JD(S) and an Independent won one seat each in the state in the 2019 general elections.
Shivakumar told reporters here that the Congress was well equipped to face the elections.
The state Congress president said the party had convened a meeting of all leaders who were nominated to the guarantee implementation committees on March 21, to chalk out strategies for the polls. The deputy chief minister said that the party’s second list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections would most likely be released on March 19 or 20.
All India Congress Committee president Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated that democracy would be destroyed if Modi was elected as prime minister again.
“I welcome PM Modi kickstarting his party’s campaign from Gulbarga. His divisive policies and politics are a case in point that he is set to destroy the democracy in the country. I have been saying this for a long time. This will be the last election to save democracy. After this, there will be no more elections in the country,” he told reporters.
The I.N.D.I.A. alliance led by Congress would fight unitedly to defeat NDA this time, Kharge said.
(Published 17 March 2024, 12:18 IST)
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