Hubballi: Senior BJP leader Jagadish Shettar, who had also been a Hubli-Dharwad Central constituency ticket aspirant but was not named in the first list of the party, said on Wednesday that he will meet the party high command in New Delhi to discuss the matter.

BJP did not include Shettar’s name in the first list of its candidates for the Karnataka Assembly elections this year. Many of Shettar’s supporters are learned to have objected to the senior leader’s exclusion.

JP Nadda, BJP national president, is also learned to have called Shettar late Tuesday night and invited him for a meeting with the BJP High Command in New Delhi.

“I will be visiting New Delhi to meet the national leaders of the party. I will not be able to meet BS Yediyurappa as per party protocol due to urgency of the matter,” Shettar told reporters on Wednesday.

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Chennai (PTI): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has strongly criticised the Centre over the women's reservation and accused it of trying to use it as a "weapon" to tackle the opposition before taking up the delimitation exercise based on population.

"The Union government is not concerned about implementing reservations for women. If their concerns were genuine, they could have done it right away. Rather than doing that, the BJP-led Centre is thinking of using it as a weapon to tackle opposition and take up the delimitation exercise based on population," he told PTI in an interview.

"Hence, the women's reservation must be implemented immediately without showing delimitation as a reason," the DMK president added.

Expressing apprehensions on the proposed delimitation exercise, the CM said it was the DMK that raised the first voice asserting the rights of the state after realising that Tamil Nadu would be affected by the proposed exercise. He also attacked his rival and AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami over the delimitation issue.

Recalling efforts made by the DMK to raise the issue of population-based delimitation, he said an all-party meeting and a meeting of CMs under the auspices of the Joint Action Committee seeking fair delimitation were convened. It sought to freeze delimitation for 25 years and stick to it based on the 1971 Census population.

"We urged the union government that states which successfully implemented population control programmes must not be punished," he added. 

The party came up with "Tamil Nadu poradum, Tamil Nadu vellum" (Tamil Nadu will struggle, Tamil Nadu will win) and this is DMK's stand, he said.

"However, Palaniswami, who is seeking votes for the entry of the BJP through the backdoor, has till date been mute over delimitation, and this is a betrayal of the people of Tamil Nadu."