We are winning in Karnataka, no one predicted 303 seats in Lok Sabha 2019: BJP leader BL Santosh
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, May 11
Top BJP leader BL Santosh, who is general secretary, organisation, coordinating with the RSS, on Thursday rejected exit polls of Karnataka saying the BJP is winning big in the southern state.
“With due respect to all celebrity pollsters, none of them predicted 282 in Lok Sabha 2014 or 303 in Lok Sabha 2019 or 156 in Gujarat 2022 or 104 in Karnataka 2018,” said Santosh who belongs to Karnataka, and who played a major role in ticket allocations and strategy drafting.
Santosh said that in 2018 the BJP led in 24,000 booths with zero leads in 14 assembly constituencies.
“This time we will lead in 31,000 booths with all assembly constituencies contributing. Numbers is your guess,” he said a day after the majority of exit polls predicted a hung house giving the Congress the edge.
Two pollsters have given Congress a clear win, one said the BJP would win with 114 seats and the rest predicted a hung house giving Congress the advantage in a 224-member house where 113 is the majority mark.
Asked about the Karnataka landscape, Santosh said the BJP had no anti-incumbency in the state.
“The Congress managed to target us on anti-incumbency but it did not stick. Plus, the Congress campaign peaked around April 26 whereas the BJP campaign as expected hit the right chords. The PM’s last minute push helped,” he said, adding that now is not the era of fractured verdicts. Now is the era is of clear mandates as voters have shown in all elections in 2022 from UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa to Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Santosh said the BJP had worked for three months as part of a strategy to cross 120 seats and touch 130.
“Our challenge is not winning. Our challenge is winning with a clear majority,” he said.
Santosh hails from Karnataka and has been actively involved in BJP planning across 53 lakh booths in the state.
The party is hoping its mass micro management of booths would reap benefits on May 13, result day, no matter what the pollsters say.
Santosh said delivery of development and benefits through double engine Central and state BJP governments have offset the impact of incumbency in Karnataka.
He cited Rs 10,000 Kisan samman nidhi — Rs 6,000 from Centre and Rs 4,000 from state as a major example of double engine delivery.
The top BJP leader added Karnataka was number one state in FDI, second only to Maharashtra in GST collections and was the best managed Indian state in Covid.
