The Hindu : Poojary rules out early Assembly elections

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Poojary rules out early Assembly elections

By Our Special Correspondent

GULBARGA April 7. The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President, B.Janardhana Poojary, today ruled out the possibility of advancing the elections to the Legislative Assembly. He said the party government would complete its term.

Mr. Poojary told presspersons here that although there were indications of snap polls to the Lok Sabha, the Congress wanted the Government in the State to complete its term.

To a question, Mr. Poojary said the BJP leaders at the Centre, including the party President, M.Venkaiah Naidu, had given indications of mid-term elections to the Lok Sabha and the Congress was ready for it.

He said the resignation of the Union Minister, Shanta Kumar, indicated that the BJP leadership was cracking its whip on dissidents to quell dissension in the party before the crucial elections to the Lok Sabha.

Mr. Poojary said the Congress leadership had started moving in the right direction to mobilise the grassroots-level workers for the impending general elections. In the first phase, the AICC President, Sonia Gandhi, had convened a meeting of the DCC and Block Congress Presidents recently in New Delhi and gave a clear message to all party workers to be ready for polls. He reiterated that there was no proposal to reorganise the party in the State. His main intention was to motivate the office-bearers to work with more vigour for strengthening the organisational network and make the elected representatives from the panchayat to the Assembly level get closer to the people to understand their problems and also to propagate various development programmes launched by the party Government in the State.

Mr. Poojary said he was not perturbed by the moves of unity among Opposition parties, particularly by the Janata Dal parties. His aim was to prepare the party to face the elections with all confidence.

Asked about the moves initiated by the Suttur Math swamiji to bring about the merger of two Janata Dal parties, Mr. Poojary said he was not aware why the swamiji had met the Janata Dal leaders.

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