BJP working towards Congress-mukt Karnataka: Yeddyurappa

Bengaluru: Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa today claimed that the saffron party would achieve its dream of ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ after defeating the ruling party in the state in next year’s Assembly polls.

Yeddyurappa, who has been named as the BJP’s chief ministerial face for the Karnataka Assembly polls by party chief Amit Shah, said he and the workers of the saffron party were working towards achieving a ‘Congress-mukt’ (Congress- free) Karnataka as per the wishes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

BJP would achieve its “mission of winning 150 (Assembly) seats” in Karnataka in 2018, he said at a meet-the-press programme organised by The Press Club of Bangalore and the Bangalore Reporters Guild.

“We will fight the next election under the stewardship of Modi, like we did in Uttar Pradesh where the party won convincingly,” said the former chief minister.

Yeddyurappa, credited with leading the BJP to form its first ever government in the south in 2008, said he would like to repeat the feat, especially after Modi and Shah “honoured” him by announcing his name as the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the next Assembly election.

He expressed confidence that the BJP would form government in Karnataka on its own and brushed aside any possibility of a coalition in the run-up to the election.

On his recent public spat with senior party leader KS Eshwarappa, Yeddyurappa said the party leadership had resolved the “small” differences between them and all were moving ahead in unison.

Asked about the corruption cases against him, Yeddyurappa, who had to quit as the chief minister in 2011 over graft charges, said except “two-three cases related to land denotification”, his name had been cleared in all the cases.

Replying to another query, he said the BJP would use former chief minister SM Krishna’s “IT-BT image” to woo the young voters of Bengaluru city.

Unhappy over the state of affairs in the Congress party, Krishna had recently defected to the saffron camp.