Away from spotlight Nadda, Sitharaman toiled double-engine plank in Karnataka
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, May 9: While the people will vote to elect members of Karnataka Assembly tomorrow, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Jagat Prakash Nadda and Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sithraman literally toiled the electoral ground for over a month to build the double-engine poll narrative of the saffron outfit.
The task came on Nadda and Sitharaman to defend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic model, which is increasingly coming under attack from Congress, which promised a slew of measures in Karnataka on the lines of Himachal Pradesh.
The BJP was war after the Himachal Pradesh verdict, and the saffron outfit pressed in service both Nadda and Sitharaman to drum up achievements of the double-engine government of the BJP at the Centre and Karnataka. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s remained focused on the double-engine poll plank of the BJP even while ‘Bajrang Bali’ made a grand entry in the electioneering plot.
Nadda and Sitharaman led extensive BJP outreach among intellectuals, women, students and housing society members. Sitharaman even spent a day in Satsang in her bid to tick all the boxes. Nadda didn’t miss to visit any Mutt.
Modi, Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath led the last stage slogging with hard Hindutva. They latched on Congress handing over slogans. Bajrang Bali, PFI ban, Muslim reservation, and others played out to grab the eyeballs.
Nadda addressed dozens of meetings with intellectuals across Karnataka, while also holding public rallies and roadshows. In closed door meetings, broadcast live on social media platforms, Nadda counted gains of the double engine government.
Sithraman spent her time with women voters and raised pitch against Congress’ promises of unemployment allowances for graduates (Rs 3000 per month for two years) and diploma holders (Rs 1500 per month for two years), 200 units of free electricity, Rs 2000 per month to women, free bus rides for women, etc.
Nadda was busy in Karnataka even before top campaigners of the BJP began electioneering in the state; first reaching out to the heads of the Mutts, while holding meetings of small groups of intellectuals in several districts of the state. His pitch was Modi model of development, and its gains in Karnataka. Sitharamanm, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, emerged as principal saffron block against Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who had been working with women groups since the days of her task as the in-charge of Uttar Pradesh in the last year’s poll.
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