Denying me ticket will have a bearing on 20-25 seats in K'taka: Shettar in veiled warning to BJP
Hubballi (PTI): In a rebellious tone, former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar, who was asked by the BJP high command to drop his candidature for the Assembly election from Hubli-Dharwad Central segment, has said denying him a ticket will have a bearing on at least 20 to 25 seats in the state.
Addressing reporters here, the senior BJP leader said he would wait for the party's decision on the ticket till Sunday to decide his next course of action.
The BJP has not yet released the list of candidates for 12 constituencies, including Hubli-Dharwad Central.
"I will wait till tomorrow and then I will decide my next course of action," Shettar told reporters here on Friday night.
When questioned about the impact on the BJP for treating senior party functionaries in such a manner, he said the ruling dispensation has to think about it.
"The party has to ensure that it should not have any negative impact. Even former CM B S Yediyurappa has said that if Shettar does not get a ticket, then it will have a bearing not in just one place...it will have an immediate effect in many constituencies in north Karnataka -- at least 20 to 25 constituencies," Shettar said.
"It will indeed have an effect across Karnataka but the immediate impact will be seen in 20 to 25 constituencies," he added.
As some of the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation councillors offered to tender their resignation, the senior leader said he was grateful to them for showing their affection towards him.
"They (councillors) have expressed their displeasure. They are hurt. For them, it's enough now. Their feelings are hurt so they are expressing their anger by resigning from the municipal corporation," the former Karnataka Assembly speaker said.
Shettar added that that he will take note of the councillors' opinion and then decide the next step.
To a query that some top BJP functionaries were confident of Shettar getting the ticket, he said he was aware of such statements but he wanted "the result".
Shettar held a press conference on April 11 saying that he received a call from Delhi where a senior party functionary asked him to drop his candidature to make way for young people.
He said this was not acceptable to him and expressed his resolve to contest the election this time come what may.
The BJP has so far put out a list of 212 candidates for the Assembly election and has not yet announced the names of remaining 12 seats.
The 224-seat Assembly in Karnataka will go to polls on May 10 and the results are scheduled to come out on May 13.
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
