BJP braces up for carpet bombing with Modi-Yogi in Karnataka poll campaign
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, April 18: Pushed to the wall to break the trend of 40-year, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is bracing up to carpet-bomb the Karnataka poll campaign with rallies of the big guns of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hindtuva poster boy Yogi Adityanath, in the days leading to the May 19 polling.
Sources in the BJP headquarters revealed that there could be as many as 35 rallies of the BJP’s top three campaigners and even more in Karnataka. The BJP will be banking heavily on Modi and Adityanath, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah and the BJP chief JP Nadda will also remain heavily invested in the party’s southern pocket borough.
“The prime minister will be carrying much of the weight of the election campaign, as his brand value is seen to have appeal across the caste lines. While there were earlier views of him holding fewer rallies, but now he will go all guns blazing in the last 18 days of the campaigning in Karnataka,” sources said.
The BJP has released candidates for all the 224 Assembly seats in Karnataka after denying tickets to several sitting legislators. The saffron outfit has also faced setback as former chief minister Jagdish Shettar, who has considerable influence in the Hubli-Dharwad region quit the BJP to join Congress. He is a Lingayata face. Another senior BJP leader, also from the Lingayata community, Laxman Savadi to joined Congress.
“The BJP will be unleashing the UP CM in a big way, as he has massive appeal in Karnataka, besides having emerged as the second most sought after campaigner for the party just behind Modi. Thus, Modi-Adityanath will wield much of the trump card for the BJP to blunt the Opposition onslaught against the ruling party in the state,” sources added.
Locally, the BJP has given free hand to former state Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa to campaign across the state. The party has provided him choppers and other necessary facilities to campaign in Karnataka. Incumbent CM Basavaraj Bommai too will hold his grounds in the campaign.
No incumbent government has won elections in Karnataka since 1983, and the BJP is up against the historical trend, which was also a case in Himachal Pradesh where the saffron outfit faltered at the finishing line, as the saffron outfit bagged only a few thousand votes less than the victorious Congress.
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