Karnataka will go to mid-term polls, says BJP president B.Y. Vijayendra

BJP State president B.Y. Vijayendra has asserted that Karnataka is headed for mid-term elections, regardless of who succeeds Siddaramaiah as Chief Minister in the ongoing Congress power struggle.

Speaking to the media in Shivamogga on Wednesday (May 27), Mr. Vijayendra said the Congress high command’s marathon meeting in Delhi, which culminated in a directive to Siddaramaiah to step down, was itself an admission of the government’s failure. “This clearly shows that even the Congress high command has acknowledged that the Siddaramaiah-led government failed to deliver good governance to the people of Karnataka over the last three years,” he said.

Mr. Vijayendra argued that despite Siddaramaiah’s reputation as an experienced administrator, his tenure had plunged the State into deep debt and been marked by multiple corruption scandals. He dismissed the Congress party’s attempts to cite its recent by-poll victories as evidence of public support. “Bypoll results are not a yardstick for measuring a government’s performance. If they were, Siddaramaiah would not be losing his position,” he said pointedly.

Further, Mr. Vijayendra maintained that the Congress party was on a steady decline across the country, and that no replacement for Siddaramaiah would be able to arrest that slide. “Whoever takes over as Chief Minister, the Congress government will not complete its term. Mid-term polls are inevitable,” he declared.