Mangalore: BJP slams Congress internal election, bats for Janardhan Poojary

Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (DV)

Mangalore, Mar 1: BJP state vice-president Bhanuprakash on Saturday March 1 criticised the Congress for holding internal election to choose its candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and said that experienced Congress leader Janardhan Poojary should have been the unanimous choice.

Addressing a press meet at the BJP district office here on Saturday March 1, he said, "Congress has chosen Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency for its experimental 'internal election' against veteran leader B Janardhana Poojary, who is an honest worker of the Congress party, close to the Nehru family. This is really astonishing."

He further said, "The process of 'internal democracy' by the Congress party for the first time is also an experiment on Janardhan Poojary.  Democracy should begin from Janpath and not be experimented against Dakshina Kannada. People will take serious note of this."

"Holding internal election in the district to select the MP candidate is like pitting 'Bheeshma against Arjuna'," he added. 

When reporters asked him to clarify on speculations surrounding Nalin Kumar Kateel's candidature, he insisted that Nalin Kumar was still the party's choice. Terming a change in the candidature as 'impossible', he said there could be no change as Nalin's name as candidate was taken at Narendra Modi's recent rally too.

"Nalin Kumar will tour the district in the coming days. We get hardly 45 days for election campaign hence we need to finish one round of campaign at the booth level," he said.

Pratap Simha Nayak added that the campaign has already started from Puttur after offering prayers to Puttur Mahalingeshwara Temple.

He also said that after Modi’s rally on February 18, the party received a huge number of SMSes and emails from people who expressed willingness to work for the party in elections.
  
"The district BJP will extend support to the district bandh against Yettinahole project on March 3. Also, on March 11, the BJP corporators will hold a protest against MCC for not electing a mayor even one year after the local body elections," Nayak informed.
 
Karkala MLA Sunil Kumar was present.