Kannadigas can make do without PM’s ‘blessings’: Sonia

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, May 6

Congress stalwart Sonia Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing an election rally in Hubbali in Karnataka.

She hit out at BJP president JP Nadda’s “PM Modi’s blessing” remark and said people of Karnataka did not need anyone’s blessing. “The BJP is threatening people and saying if the BJP does not win in the state, it will not receive PM Modi’s blessings,” she said.

“The fate of leaders is determined by common people and leaders cannot determine public’s fate,” the Rae Bareli MP said.

“I would like to tell the BJP that the people of Karnataka count on their hard work rather than relying on anyone’s blessings,” she said.

Nadda had urged the voters in the poll-bound state to make sure the BJP was elected to power so that they didn’t lose the “blessings” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The BJP is a party known for grabbing power through coercive means without any regard for democratic principles,” Sonia said, reminding how the government formed by the Congress in 2018 was toppled by the BJP.

She said in 1978, when her mother-in-law late Indira Gandhi was being hounded by her political opponents, she made a triumphant return to Parliament by winning election from Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka. The Congress leader said she herself had chosen Bellary constituency in Karnataka for making her debut in the Lok Sabha.

Slamming the incumbent government in the state over various issues like corruption and Nandini milk, Sonia asked the voters of Karnataka to vote for the grand old party.

“It is everyone’s responsibility to strengthen our voice against BJP government’s dark rule,” she said.

“Don’t you feel that dacoity has become the business of those in power? You did not elect them in 2018. They robbed the government and captured it,” she said.

Invoking the 4,000-km Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi, she said the yatra was against those whose job was to spread hatred.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party president Rahul Gandhi also took part in the rally.

Plot to kill Kharge, family, alleges Cong

Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala on Saturday alleged that a BJP candidate had been conspiring to “wipe out” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, his wife and the entire family. He played an audio recording of BJP candidate from the Chittapur constituency Manikanta Rathod in which he was heard saying in Kannada that he would wipe out Kharge, his wife and children. TNS