Amit Shah holds rally in Karnataka’s Belagavi as BJP looks to secure its strongholds

“We want to win 16 out of the 18 seats in Belagavi. In the coming elections please give the BJP a full mandate,” the Union Home Minister told his audience at the public rally in Belagavi on Saturday.

“The people of Karnataka have to decide in April-May as to who will rule the state for the next five years. On one side is the dynastic Congress party and JDS while on the other side is a party of patriots and nationalists, the BJP, which under the leadership of Modiji has taken the country to new heights in the world,” Shah said.

“On one hand, there is a party that wants to win 25 to 30 seats and ride on the Congress cart to run the government and perpetrate dynastic politics which disrespects the people of Karnataka — which is the JD(S),” the Home Minister said.

“When the Congress was in power in Karnataka they functioned like the ATM of the party leadership in Delhi. The Congress has pushed Karnataka neck-deep into corruption. The Congress and JDS look like two different parties, but every vote cast for the JDS will ultimately go to the Congress. It would only help the Congress party achieve a victory,” the BJP leader claimed.

In the BJP stronghold of Kittur Karnataka, where there are large numbers of the dominant Lingayat community, the BJP won 30 seats in 2018 while the Congress won 17 and the JD(S) 2.

On Saturday, the BJP put up a show of its Lingayat leadership in the state with Shah being accompanied by former CM B S Yediyurappa, chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, former CM Jagadish Shettar in a road show in neighbouring Dharwad prior to the Belagavi rally.

Shah also attended the 75th anniversary event of an engineering college run by a Lingayat education trust operated by former BJP Rajya Sabha MP and close Yediyurappa associate Prabhakar Kore in Hubbali on Saturday morning.

“The BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi has worked in the whole country for development — be it of the poor, the Dalits, Advisasis, farmers, youth, or the women. The BJP has made India the fifth-largest economy in the world by working on the development of all,”’ Shah said in Belagavi.

“The other parties are making different kinds of promises but I have come here to say one thing that the progress of Karnataka, the progress of India can be provided only by the BJP. Narendra Modiji has brought about a slew of projects for the welfare of the poor,” he said.

“The BJP has had two opportunities to appoint a President for the country – on one occasion we appointed Ramnath Kovind who is from a poor Dalit family, and on the second time we appointed a woman who has come up from extreme poverty Droupadi Murmu and honored the Adivasis,” he said.

Shah also claimed that the BJP has settled the dispute over sharing the Mahadayi river water between Karnataka and Goa — which has been sought by people in Kittur Karnataka for decades.

“In 2007, Sonia Gandhi gave a speech in Goa and said that the Mahadayi waters will not be allowed to be diverted to Karnataka. In 2022 the Congress said in its manifesto that the party will resolve not to give a drop of Mahadayi water to Karnataka. Today the BJP has settled the Mahadayi dispute that is several years old by giving the Mahadayi water to Karnataka and for the farmers of many districts in Karnataka it is a great thing,” Shah said.

“What did the Congress government do for north Karnataka when it was in power?” he said while highlighting a number of projects including a new railway line and a Sainik School in the region.

Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai said the BJP is focused on winning Belagavi, Dharwad, Kittur Karnataka, Hyderabad-Karnataka, and South Karnataka and that the party is being organised by the central leadership to achieve this goal.

“The influence of the national leaders will have an effect on state politics and the party is making use of it,” Bommai said.