Hubballi: Unfazed by the outrage of Lingayat seers and leaders against his vow never to allow division of Veerashaiva-Lingayats, BJP national president, Amit Shah has decided to hold a dharna in Dharwad against the ‘divisive politics’ of the Congress.

Interestingly , he plans to hold the protest on the home turf of mines and geology Minister, Vinay Kulkarni, who has been in the forefront of the movement for independent religion status for Lingayats.




But Mr Shah will continue to do the balancing act as he plans to visit a prominent Lingayat mutt in Dharwad, which is backing the demand for a minority status for the community, and also the Siddaroodh and

Moorusavir Mutts in Hubballi, which have remained neutral on the Lingayat religion issue.

But the BJP president could face anger from drought-hit farmers on the Mahadayi issue, in Gadag where he will visit the Puttaraja Gavai Ashram and Veera Narayanaswamy temple and take part in concluding programme of the Musti Dhanya Sangraha Abhiyan (fist-ful of rice campaign) in Abbigeri villag of Ron taluks.

“BJP will come to power in the State as Congress is losing its base across the country. Congress is trying to bring disrepute to the Union government by adopting various tactics as it is unhappy with the good governance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr Shah is going on a two-day tour of the region to highlight the failures of the state government”, senior BJP leader, Jagadish Shettar said.

Its hoped his tour of Mumbai-Karnataka will energise BJP workers in the region where the party lost most of its Assembly seat the last poll.

BSY interacts with college students

In a youth outreach programme held in the city on Wednesday, the BJP’s CM candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa promised to restore normalcy in law and order, adopt a holistic approach to ease traffic congestion, give a free hand to honest officials to reduce corruption and bring in transparency in government recruitments.

Hundreds of youth particularly college students participated in the programme moderated by BJP spokesperson, Malavika Avinash under the theme, ‘New Bengaluru for New India.’ Responding to a question, Mr Yeddyurappa said he knew that the traffic congestion was wasting the productive time of lakhs of employees. If voted to power, the BJP government will set up an expert committee to suggest innovative measures for signal-free corridors all across the city, he said. The former CM said he was bothered about the collapse of law and order and would take stringent measures to bring it on track. The ruling party leaders and BBMP officials have colluded with contractors to swindle money allocated for garbage clearance. For example, 100 loads of garbage collection was shown in the accounts but in reality, only 10 loads were cleared. The accounts were full of bogus invoices.