MYSURU: Exuding confidence of returning at the head of a Congress government for a second time, chief minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that the party’s victory in Karnataka would presage its win in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Besides striking a confident note about the outcome of the assembly elections, Siddaramaiah predicted Congress forming the government at the Centre, at the head of like-minded secular parties next year.At a nearly hour-long interaction with the media, Siddaramaiah said that the Congress had succeeded in fulfilling all the 165 promises it had made in the manifesto, after coming to power five years ago. The Congress had won 122 seats in the assembly elections in 2013. “People consider my government as a clean and stable one, which was not marred by any scandals,” Siddaramaiah said.The CM said that he had found no signs of anti-incumbency during the state-wide tour. “We explain development programmes initiated in the past five years without making any personal attacks, but BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi are making baseless allegations. So, I had to make a few political statements against them since remaining silent would have sent a wrong message to the people,” the CM said.Charging BJP leaders of indulging in ‘ugly politics’, the CM said that he was a better Hindu than those in the saffron party since he believed in humanitarian values. “Hindus and Muslims died in Dakshina Kannada, but the BJP leaders visited the homes of only Hindu victims. BS Yeddyurappa is visiting homes of Dalits for breakfast, which is an election gimmick. He never visited homes of Dalits, when he was the CM. The Indian Constitution has abolished untouchability, but BJP leaders are humiliating Dalits by visiting their homes,” Siddaramaiah said.On the party’s Ballari MLA NY Gopalaswamy joining the BJP, Siddaramaiah said, “Gopalaswamy wanted to shift to Molakalmuru segment this year, and we honoured his request. When the BJP announced Sriramulu as its candidate from the segment, Gopalaswamy, fearing a defeat, requested us for a ticket from Ballari, which the Congress leadership rejected.”On promoting family politics, which goes against the grain of his ideology, by fielding his son Yathindra Siddaramaiah from Varuna, the segment he currently represents, the CM said that he had planned to retire from electoral politics and had contemplated fielding his son Rakesh from the constituency. “But, after Rakesh’s sudden death, I told Yathindra to look after Varuna. In the meantime, the party high command directed me to contest the election. Since Yathindra was touring the constituency, people wanted him to contest from Varuna and consequently, I shifted to Chamundeshwari. If I wanted to promote my family, I would have given Rakesh the ticket back in 2013,” Siddaramaiah said.Reacting to the opposition’s allegations of using backdoor channels to push his son Yathindra into politics, Siddaramaiah said, “If Yathindra had been made the MLC or a Rajya Sabha member, they could have levelled such an allegation against me. Neither HD Kumaraswamy nor Yeddyurappa has any moral right to speak about family politics.”

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