Hubballi, Aug 29: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President G Parameshwara said that Congress party will not involve itself in the issue of creation of separate religion of Lingyatas. Speaking to selected media persons at a hotel in Hubballi on Monday night, he said “we are a political party; establishing of religious entities is not our duty. It is the role of religious leaders and community head. Congress will not involve itself in the tug of religious war over the formation of Lingayat community as religion,” he said.
Replying to a question, he said, even the government's stand on this is clear, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has assured that the government would take a call only on the basis of what law states and not make any extra efforts regarding this. He claimed that the issue would not politically benefit Congress party.
The former home minister said that the party has drawn plans to counter the BJP in Karnataka elections in 2018. “We have approximately 210 days for assembly elections. The party has chalked out plans for all the 224 assembly constituencies,” he said and added that majority of its candidates would be sitting MLAs.
“The party and government have so far conducted three internal surveys. Based on the survey reports and ground reports from our observers we will select winnable candidates,” he said and added that majority of 122 sitting MLAs would be given a chance to contest followed by those candidates who lost by narrow margins.
While he did not give an exact number of seats the party is expected to win, he said that the party would get a comfortable majority on its own and there will be no need for any alliance.
He said the party is banking on the various social welfare schemes and bhagyas announced by the Siddaramaiah led government. Nearly five crore people have benefited from one or the other bhagyas of the government, he said and added that the party is also reconsidering few of the schemes that have been seen as 'appeasing' of a certain community like free bus pass to SC/ST students.
Ready for Shah
The longest serving KPPC president Parameshawara said that his party is ready for the Narendra Modi-Amith Shah juggernaut, and said that his government would make sure that communal tensions at the time of elections will be completely controlled.
“We are expecting the BJP to rake up communal issues during the elections and we are prepared to tackle that. Any communal incident will be strongly dealt with,” he said.
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