PM begins K'taka blitzkrieg via video conference with party workers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today that development was his only agenda for the Karnataka Assembly polls, and accused the state's Congress government of stalling its progress. Modi also accused the Congress of playing caste politics during elections.


"BJP has a three-pronged agenda for Karnataka -- development, fast paced development, all round development," he told BJP leaders, office bearers and party workers via video conference.


"Our agenda is vikas (development), vikas, vikas," he said. Without naming the Lingayats, the prime minister accused the Congress government of doing caste politics.


"When elections come, they offer lollipops to a caste group so they get busy with it. But the BJP's priority is politics of development," he said.


The Siddaramaiah government recently recommended religious minority status for the Lingayat and its sub-group Veershaiva Lingayat community. The move is seen as an attempt to divide the Lingayats, the bedrock of the BJP's voter base in the state. The Congress government in Karnataka, he alleged, was responsible for tardy progress of the state. With pre-poll surveys projecting a hung Assembly, Modi asked the voters to elect a BJP government with absolute majority to give a fillip to development. PTI