Days after praising Deve Gowda, Modi attacks JD-S
Bengaluru, May 3: Days after praising former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda that set off speculation of a possible coming together of the BJP and the Janata Dal-Secular in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the JD-S would finish a distant third in the Assembly polls and wondered why people should waste votes on that party.
Addressing a meeting, the Prime Minister also hit out at the Congress, accusing it of spreading rumours of a hung Assembly.
"The JD-S cannot form its own government and it cannot even remove the Congress from power. Why should any sensible voter vote for it?" he asked.
Modi said the JD-S had done a crime by joining hands with extremists and communal forces and by doing so it has tried to play with the future of Karnataka.
At a BJP rally in Udupi on Tuesday, the Prime Minister had showered praise on Deve Gowda, the JD-S patriarch and an influential Vokkaliga leader.
"I heard that the Congress President criticized the respected Deve Gowdaji at an election rally 15-20 days ago. Is that your culture?" Modi said, seemingly directing the question at Rahul Gandhi.
"Such arrogance. You are starting your political life and Deve Gowdaji is one of the greatest leaders of our country," Modi said.
That set off speculation that the BJP and JD-S could come together post-poll in case of a hung verdict, which many poll surveys had predicted.
Attacking the Congress, Modi said: "Be it 2104 Lok Sabha polls or any other elections to the state assemblies, whenever Congress is sure of its defeat, it starts spreading rumours like nobody is going to get majority or there will be a hung Assembly. They start spreading a lie. When the Congress starts spreading such lies, it means the BJP is winning," he said.
He said that all the political pundits or survey agencies were of the clear opinion that the JD-S will finish at a distant number three.
Modi said the enthusiasm of people in Karnataka towards the BJP was a clear indication that they would dethrone the Congress.
"The people of Karnataka have no faith in Congress government, its Chief Minister and other ministers," he said.
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ECI website faces outage amid vote counting in Jharkhand, Maharashtra
New Delhi: Election Commission of India’s official results website ‘results.eci.gov.in’ has reportedly experienced a technical outage on Saturday morning, at a time when India closely watches the high-stakes Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly poll battle.
Visitors visiting the site were met with non-functional links and a generic “counting in progress” message, leaving them without updated election data. The ECI has not issued an official explanation for the disruption.
Vote counting, which began at 8 a.m. with postal ballots, is underway for 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra and 81 in Jharkhand. Early trends suggest a lead for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, currently ahead in 141 seats, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is leading in 96. In Jharkhand, the BJP-led NDA is ahead in 43 seats, while the ruling JMM-led alliance is trailing with leads in 33 constituencies.
Additionally, counting is underway for 48 assembly bypolls across 13 states and two parliamentary seats, Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala.
