Ahead of Karnataka Assembly polls, Congress launches campaign to target BJP

The Karnataka Congress launched Monday a concerted campaign against the ruling BJP for ‘unfulfilled’ promises from the saffron party’s 2018 election manifesto.

The ‘Nim Hatra Idya Uttara?’ campaign will go on up till the 2023 Assembly election, with the Congress asking questions to the BJP daily.

The campaign, which is to counter the BJP’s ‘Janotsava’ campaign, was launched at a jumbo news conference here led by AICC general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala, KPCC president D K Shivakumar, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah, AICC secretaries and KPCC working presidents.

“The BJP made 600 promises and they haven’t started work on 91 per cent of the promises made to the people of Karnataka,” Surjewala said. “This is a campaign we've initiated to put the truth before the people, summarising the betrayal the BJP has committed,” he said.

Slamming the “power-hungry” BJP, Surjewala said: “This is a government of four Cs - crumbling infrastructure, complete policy paralysis, corruption and communal tension. That’s what the BJP has given in its misrule and corrupt regime.”

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Surjewala also dubbed Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai as “perhaps the most incompetent CM in the history of Karnataka lording over the most corrupt government in the country”.

Siddaramaiah said the Congress government he headed (2013-18) fulfilled 158 out of 165 manifesto promises. “The BJP had promised Rs 1.5 lakh crore to complete all pending irrigation projects. In three years, they’ve spent only Rs 48,000 crore. Where’s the remaining Rs 1 lakh crore?,” he asked.

Targeting the BJP over corruption, Siddaramaiah charged that the saffron party is “auctioning the state’s image” by citing the example of the scam in the recruitment of police sub-inspectors. “To hide their failures, they’re bringing religious issues to the fore.”

The Congress’ campaign uses the word ‘vachana’ - it means promise and is also used to refer to prose texts composed by Lingayatism founder Basavanna - to attack the BJP. “The BJP’s manifesto was titled ‘Our Vachana to Karnataka’. What they’ve done instead is vanchane (betrayal),” Shivakumar said.

The campaign took off with Surjewala posing the following questions to the BJP: “Where is the farm loan waiver? Where is the double MSP you were supposed to give? Where are the skill development and job creation schemes? Where are the smartphones for women? Where is the scholarship for SC/ST/OBC/minorities and the poor? Where are the housing schemes?”