The Hindu : `Cong. trying to create vote banks'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 15, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

`Cong. trying to create vote banks'

By Our Staff Correspondent

Sangh Parivar workers at a rally in Mangalore on Thursday.

MANGALORE AUG. 14. The BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders, who appeared on a common platform here today, criticised the State unit of the Congress, and alleged that its leaders were misusing official machinery for creating vote banks among minority communities for the coming elections.

The President of the State unit of the BJP, H.N. Ananth Kumar, addressed a large gathering of Sangh Parivar workers from Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts who had assembled here to protest against the Kalladka incidents. He said Congress leaders still believed in vote-bank politics which gave them power in the past decades. However, thanks to the awakening among the people, especially in Congress-ruled States, vote-bank politics would not work. He added that "oppression" of majority communities to appease minority groups would also not work.

Mr. Ananth Kumar said that Congress leaders were trying to divide society by "appeasing" the minorities, especially Muslims. Although the Muslims wanted to live in peace with the majority community, the Congress was not allowing them to do so, he alleged. As a result, the Congress had lost ground among the majority and minority communities, he added.

He alleged that there was a nexus between the Congress and police in Dakshina Kannada district, and this was seen in cases of "oppression" of the majority community.

Earlier, the BJP leader, B.S. Yediyurappa, said that the Congress Government in the State had misused official machinery, including the all-India service cadres, and this was evident in the attitude of police and district-level officials to the majority community. The Kalladka incidents had become a benchmark of discrimination against the majority by the Congress Government through the bureaucracy, he added.

Leaders of various Sangh Parivar groups, including the president of the Hindu Jagarana Vedike State unit, Jagadish Karanth, the chief of the VHP's district unit, M.B. Puranik, the president of the Hindu Hitarakshana Samithi's State unit, Kumble Sundar Rao, the divisional convenor of the RSS, T. Madhav Bhandari, and the chief of the State unit of the women's wing of the BJP, Shakuntala Shetty, were present.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News Update

Stories in this Section

CET Cell suspends counselling

Better equipment for STF likely

Impasse ends, new films from today

`Cong. trying to create vote banks'

Cola sales slump in Mysore

Veerabhadrappa vows to fulfil poll promises

Re-exam. ordered for ITI students