Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj K.S. Eshwarappa has said that there was no Kuruba, Lingayat, Vokkaliga, or Brahmin community in the BJP.
Speaking to presspersons in Belgavi on Saturday, Mr. Eshwarappa said that the State and Central leaders would discuss and choose a candidate who would appeal to the masses and had the potential to win in Belagavi Loksabha byelection.
Responding to the demand for party ticket for the Kuruba community, he sought to know how many of the Kuruba candidates given ticket by the Congress had won the election. “During my tenure, I gave party tickets to three candidates. Should we give party tickets to those who will lose deposits? We don’t know whether we will give the Belagavi Loksabha ticket to a Kuruba, Lingayat, Vokkaliga or Brahmin candidate but definitely not to aMuslim candidate,” he said.
He explained that as Belagavi was a Hindutva centre, there was no question of giving party ticket to a Muslim candidate.
To another query, he said that former Chief Minister Siddarmaiah had lost his image. “We have already seen what happened in R.R. Nagar and Sira ssembly bypolls. In fact, if he had not won in Badami, then he would not be in politics at all. He has to show that he is politically alive, and so keeps on issuing one or the other statement,” he said.
