Bengaluru: Mandya Lok Sabha member Sumalatha Ambareesh, who won as an independent candidate in 2019 parliamentary poll, on Friday announced her support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and termed her decision to support BJP in Mandya involves ‘a risk.’
In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, Sumalatha Ambareesh defeated Nikhil Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal Secular (JDS), son of H.D. Kumaraswamy who was the Chief Minister then.
While announcing her stand, she told the people of Mandya that the support to BJP “Is not for my future but this is about Mandya development and its future.” Explaining her stance to support BJP, the Mandya MP said ‘I believe in the leadership of Modi and under his leadership, the country has progressed and the image of the country has grown in foreign countries.”
“I have been observing the developments for close to four years and mulling on the idea to support for a year,” she said and felt she needed more strength to carry out development works in Mandya. Sumalatha said “I should go a step forward for the development of Mandya to support BJP.”
She said that ‘change’ in the political scenario of Mandya is the need of the hour and called upon the people of Mandya to join hands with her to ‘cleanse’ the ‘polluted’ political atmosphere of Mandya in the coming days.
Her late husband Ambareesh was a popular cine star and represented Mandya in Lok Sabha and Assembly in Mandya on Congress ticket. Referring to her husband, Sumalatha said “I could have easily joined the Congress party and they would have welcomed me into the party’ but ‘I chose a challenging route (support BJP) for long lasting success.’
Criticising Janata Dal Secular (JDS) having a considerable base in Mandya, the MP recalled that she was drawn into unnecessary troubles and claimed that she escaped two attempts on her life, one in Srirangapatna and another in Pandavapura. She claimed that she was prevented from holding meetings by JDS.
Lashing attack on JDS and in particular former Chief Minister H.D. Kuamarswamy, Sumalatha stated “You say Mandya is your bastion and what have you done for Mandya when in power”.
She felt it needed ‘will’ to do development works for the people and questioned JDS "Why didn’t Mysugar factory restart having CM (Kumarswamy) and three Ministers (from JDS in Mandya)?” She accused JDS of indulging in “only elections’ and “loose talks.”
While explaining her works in Mandya as an MP, Sumalatha claimed “I am responsible for stopping illegal mining in the district. Otherwise, illegal mining couldn’t have been stopped in Mandya.”
She also told the people of Mandya that she strived hard for the revival of Mysugar in Mandya and owing to her efforts Rs 50 crore budgetary allocation was made by the Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
She gave a list of works she had done as an MP Mandya such as Jal Jeevan Mission, Amrut Mission, renovation of dilapidated Kendriya Vidyalaya among others and stated that BJP governments in both the Centre and State responded to her pleas.
Sumalatha clarifies on her son joining politics
On the reports of her son joining politics, Sumalatha said her son Abhishek would not be joining politics until she stays in politics and even he is not interested in politics and strictly adhered to his father’s footsteps of not encouraging ‘dynastic’ politics.
Sumalatha also made it clear that she had not sought a ticket for her joining on her decision to support BJP in Mandya.
