B S Yeddyurappa's dalit outreach only a gimmick: K C Venugopal

Hubballi: Congress leaders picked Kudalasangama, the holiest of holies of Lingayats, to garner the support of voters of the numerically significant community while inaugurating the campaign for next year’s elections to the Legislative Assembly, on Thursday. 

Located 15 Km from Almatti Dam in Bagalkot district, the town attracts pilgrims through the year as 12th century prophet and reformer, Basavanna, spent his childhood, and later breathed his last here. The Kudalasangama Development Board oversees the upkeep and development of this town. 

Keeping in mind the presence of large number of Lingayats in this town and district and surrounding areas, the ruling party projected former minister S R Patil who formally took over as working president of KPCC during the rally which was addressed by general secretary in charge of Karnataka, K C Venugopal, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC president Dr G Parameshwar and host of ministers. Their obvious target: state BJP president and Chief Ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa. 

Mr Venugopal ridiculed Mr Yeddyurappa’s attempt to woo dalits by visiting their houses when elections are a few months away. Raising questions about the leader’s contribution in terms of welfare programmes for Dalits during his tenure as Chief Minister, Mr Venugopal mocked at the Lingayat strongman, saying eating food bought from hotels in Dalit households was merely a gimmick to mislead people. Stating that BJP leaders lack courage to exert pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to waive farm loans released by public sector banks, he egged them on to quiz Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu who had opposed such move. 

“Karnataka has always given an opportunity for revival of Congress whenever the party was going through a bad phase. Therefore, the Congress will return to power in next Assembly elections as it has fulfilled 80 per cent of promises made in 2013. Mr Yeddyurappa has no guts to convince the Union government about waiver of farmers' loans though Karnataka has given more MPs to their party during last four parliamentary elections. Therefore, he is cheating farmers by maintaining silence even after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah waived the loans", Mr Venugopal added.  In his address, Mr Siddaramaiah said people would never allow Mr Yeddyurappa to return to again as the BJP leader has been facing several corruption charges and was also sent to prison. Highlighting various schemes launched by the state government for the welfare of the poor, he urged that BJP should take a delegation of all seventeen MPs from the state to pressurize the Prime Minister to waive off farmers' loans and also warned that the party would face the wrath of the people if it failed to do so. 

Dr Parameshwar challenged BJP leaders to perform marriage of poor Dalit brides by scouting for grooms belonging to the upper castes to demonstrate their genuine concern for people of this community.