Expressing excitement for the massive response that Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra was receiving, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar said that BJP was panic-stricken by the success of the Yatra.
“BJP has gone crazy after seeing the overwhelming response that people are showing for Bharat Jodo Yatra being led by Congress national leader Rahul Gandhi. They are panic-stricken by the 3510-km Yatra which has been flagged off from Kanyakumari. The main purpose of the Yatra is to unite all the people with diverse religious and cultural backgrounds under a single banner of nationalism. The objective of the Yatra is diagonally opposite to that of BJP which has always attempted to divide the people along their religious lines,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
He was speaking at the party workers’ meeting in Ballari on Sunday. The meeting was convened to discuss the preparations for the Bharat Jodo Yatra which was schooled to reach Ballari on October 19.
Unleashing a bitter attack against the BJP governments at the Centre and Karnataka, Mr. Shivakumar said that the lives of common people had deteriorated during the BJP rule as the governments were insensitive to the people’s woes.
“Unemployment has touched a historic high under Modi rule. The prices of essential commodities are skyrocketing pushing the poor, lower-middle and middle-class people to a deep crisis. The Union government is so insensitive that it has imposed GST [Goods and Service Tax] even on rice, milk and curd. The government is taking all measures that raise the people’s cost of living and not their incomes,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
Training his guns to the Bommai government in the State on the corruption front, Mr. Shivakumar said the State government was forcibly extracting 30% commission from religious institutions, 40% commission from contractors of government works and 50% commission in municipal corporations.
“The agrarian crisis is deepening with the increasing prices of farm inputs and falling prices of farm produces,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
On putting Ballari in the itinerary of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Mr. Shivakumar said Rahul Gandhi particularly wanted Ballari on the route of his Yatra as it was the constituency that had given a political life to his mother Sonia Gandhi and appealed to the party workers in Ballari, Vijayanagara, Koppal and surrounding districts to work hard and make the rally success.
“Don’t bring the people by paying them. Just expose the anti-people rule of the BJP and the importance of the Yatra. They will voluntarily come and make the Yatra success,” he said.
