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Lok Sabha elections 2019: Upset over exit polls, Karnataka Congress MLA calls party leader ‘joker’
Congress leaders were surprised by Baig’s comments and said he hadn’t expressed these views to party leaders before.
The differences in the Karnataka unit of the Congress came to the fore on Tuesday after a party lawmaker blamed the state leadership as the exit polls predicted a poor showing for the Congress-JD(S).
Congress MLA R Roshan Baig suggested that he wouldn’t be surprised if the exit polls results turned out to be true. He had expressed unhappiness with the party’s decision to field only one Muslim candidate in the 21 seats the Congress contested in Karnataka.
Also read: Exit polls say NDA leads Congress-JD(S) in Karnataka
He went on to say that the Muslim community must stop behaving like a vote bloc and support the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) if need be. “All I’m saying is that the community elders should sit and discuss. How long will be treated like this, like a vote bank?”
“Even if the BJP wins 18 seats [out of 28] in the state isn’t it a slap on the face of the party that it couldn’t do anything despite being in an alliance [with Janata Dal (Secular)]? I hold this flop show president of the party [Dinesh Gundu Rao] responsible for this,” Baig said. He said it wasn’t just Gundu Rao but also Congress Legislature Party chief Siddaramaiah and AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, who should share the blame.
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The exit polls on Sunday predicted that the BJP will win majority of the 28 seats in Karnataka.
Baig, a seven-time MLA, reserved the harshest words for Congress general secretary KC Venugopal and called him a “joker”. Asked if he would quit the Congress, he said, “Let’s see what happens on May 23.”
Congress leaders were surprised by Baig’s comments and said he hadn’t expressed these views to party leaders before. “He has been influenced by the exit polls. I think he should not count his chickens before they hatch. It’s pure political opportunism and nothing else,” Karnataka Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao said.
Venugopal is visiting state capital Bengaluru later in the day to hold discussions with chief minister HD Kumaraswamy and senior Congress leaders about the likely outcome of the Lok Sabha polls. “We will take action at our own convenience. Definitely it will be discussed with Venugopal,” Gundu Rao said
Deputy chief minister G Parameshwara said that one of the reasons for Baig’s outburst was because he was not named as the Congress candidate for the Bengaluru Central constituency.
