Karnataka poll capsule

16 Chikkamagaluru BJP leaders join Cong

As many as 16 BJP leaders from Chikkamagaluru formally joined the Congress on Sunday. This will help Congress leader B L Shankar win the Chikmagalur constituency, Rajya Sabha MP G C Chandrashekar said.

Shankar has been fielded to take on three-time legislator C T Ravi of the BJP. “There’s inconsistency in the BJP. They say one thing but do another. There’s no social justice because backward classes are ignored,” former Chikkamagaluru Zilla Panchayat president Rekha Huliyappa Gowda, who jumped ship to Congress, told reporters.

BJP reaches out to North Indian party workers

The BJP held a Purvanchal Samavesha to reach out to its workers hailing from North India living in Bengaluru on Sunday. North-East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari, Bihar minister Mangal Pandey, UP ministers Swatantra Dev Singh and Mahendra Singh addressed party workers.

Purvanchal is a geographic region comprising eastern Awadhi region in the west, western Bhojpuri region in the east, the Baghelkhand region in the south and the Nepal region in the north. Union ministers Ananth Kumar, Piyush Goyal and D V Sadananda Gowda among other leaders were also present.

National security in danger: Cong leader

India’s national security has been compromised because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “aimless, irresolute and inconsistent” foreign and military policy, Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said on Sunday.

Ahmed, a former Union minister of state for home affairs, claimed that cross-border ceasefire violations, infiltration, terror and Maoist attacks had increased manifold in India.

“Post demonetisation, Modi made boastful claims of ending terrorism and Naxalism, but facts tell a different story. There have been 30 major Naxal attacks after demonetisation, in which 103 security personnel were martyred and 121 civilians killed. There have been 53 major terror incidents in J&K alone, in which 99 security personnel have been martyred and 64 civilians killed,” he said.