Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has ruled out the possibility of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha during the Lok Sabha polls.
Speaking to reporters outside his house in Mysuru on April 13, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the INDIA alliance and other parties opposed to the BJP were poised to win a majority of seats in polls. He described the BJP’s claim of NDA winning more than 400 seats even before the elections as a “strategy” to divert people’s attention away from the “defeat” they were staring at by not being in a position to win a simple majority in the Lok Sabha.
Talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to Mysuru, Mr. Siddaramaiah said Mr. Modi should inform the people about his government’s role in addressing issues of unemployment, unequal distribution of taxes and releasing aid for the drought.
On changing the Constitution
Reacting to Mr. Modi’s remarks that the Constitution can’t be abolished even by Dr B.R. Ambedkar now, Mr. Siddaramaiah questioned why the BJP has so far not taken any action against former Union Minister Ananthkumar Hegde, who had twice claimed that the BJP will change the Constitution. He asked, “Did the party expel him from the party or was he dropped from the Ministry when he made the statement against the Constitution earlier?”
He said the BJP had denied Mr. Hegde the party ticket to contest from his home constituency of Uttara Kannada this time because it was clear that he was losing. Mr. Hegde had not taken up any work in the constituency for the last five years and had come out of house only in the last three to four months, he added.
He said the BJP was never in favour of the Constitution and cited the statements of RSS leaders Savarkar and Golwarkar opposing the Constitution written by B.R. Ambedkar as examples of the saffron party’s opposition to the Constitution.
