Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Mar 11: The Congress party has derided the BJP for the dearth of able candidates in that party for the Lok Sabha election. It pointed out that out of the current list released by the BJP, seven candidates are migrants from other parties. The BJP which is suffering from the shortage of proper candidates is borrowing them from other parties, it castigated.

Addressing a press conference held here on Tuesday March 10 jointly by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president R V Deshpande and working president D K Shivkumar, it was pointed out that 35% of the candidates named by the BJP in its list of 20 Lok Sabha candidates from the state had crossed over to that party recently from other parties.

They said the BJP candidates had won maximum number of Lok Sabha states from the state last time and only nine of its candidates were defeated. However, they are giving tickets to people who crossed over from the Congress and the JD (S) by neglecting their own MPs. It is clear that these MPs had not worked affectively and that the party is afraid, they would be defeated if put up again, they said.

The list of the BJP makes it abundantly clear that that party does not have any concern about social justice or giving representation to the down-trodden classes. In contrast, the Congress wants to do justice to all the classes of people including women, youth, minorities, dalits, backward classes etc. Because of this exercise, announcement of our candidates has been delayed, they clarified.  "The review committee will be meeting in Delhi on March 12, in which names of some candidates would be finalized. By March 16, we will finalize candidates for all constituencies," they assured.

MPs M Shivanna from the JD (S), H T Sangliana and Manjunath Kunnur from the BJP, who earned the wrath of their respective parties after voting in favour of the nuclear deal, have already joined the Congress. The high command will decide on issuing tickets to them, the leaders said. They also claimed that the Congress Party is facing the problem of too many able candidates. "There are 12 aspirants for Mysore constituency alone, and Siddaramaiah is finding it hard to select one of them," the pressmen were informed.