Poll officials search Amit Shah's aircraft in Hubballi
Hubballi: BJP President Amit Shah was in for a surprise on Tuesday when Election Commission officials searched his private aircraft on landing in this Karnataka city for party events ahead of the May 12 assembly poll.
"A team of our officials searched the chartered aircraft in which Shah arrived here from New Delhi for party activities, to ensure the Model Code of Conduct is being observed," a poll official told IANS over phone.
Shah, who is on a two-day visit to the was accompanied by two more party leaders.
The search was carried by three poll officials, though nothing "unusual" was found in the aircraft.
"It was a routine check. Found nothing. It's part of our drill under the MCC, in force since March 27 when the election was announced," noted the official.
Party's Lok Sabha member from Dharwad Prahlad Joshi received Shah at the airport and accompanied him to Kaginele in Byadgi taluk of Haveri district for addressing a convention of Other Backward Classes.
Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was going to form the next government in the state, Shah said the party would fulfil the demand of the OBC community for constitutional status to the OBCs.
"Though the BJP-led NDA government has formulated 116 schemes for the OBCs across the country, unfortunately, they have not been reaching the intended beneficiaries in Karnataka due to non-cooperation of the state government," charged Shah without naming the ruling Congress.
Later, the party chief visited Badami in the state's northwest Bagalkot district for an interaction with seers of religious sects and mutts.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Ex-minister Ramanath Rai hits out at BJP leader Ashoka for ‘irresponsible’ comments on KC Venugopal
Mangaluru: Congress leader and former minister B Ramanath Rai slammed BJP leader R Ashoka for calling AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal an agent of the party high command, and asked if the general secretary and other office-bearers in the BJP were commission agents too.
Rai, who addressed a press meet at the Congress office in the city on Friday, expressed fury over the recent comments of the BJP leader that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was presenting himself in a shameless manner in public life. Ashoka, who is also Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, had said that the Congress government had ‘broken every previous record on corruption-related controversies’.
“Ashoka has spoken with sheer ignorance and displays his lack of maturity, as he often does while facing the media. KC Venugopal has been working at organization of the party and it is unbecoming of Ashoka to criticize Venugopal as he did,” Rai told reporters.
“Being in a responsible position, how acceptable is it for Ashoka to pass disrespectful, random comments about another leader who also holds a responsible position? If KC Venugopal is indeed an agent of the party high command, what should we consider BJP leaders to be? Are they brokers?” he asked
Commenting on Ashoka’s allegations of corruption in the Congress government in Karnataka, Rai pointed out, “The KSRTC land was sold to private parties when he (Ashoka) was transport minister. We can find several such cases across the state, which need to be probed.”
The former minister, however, refused to comment on the incident that occurred at Mangaluru airport during CM Siddaramaiah’s visit to the city recently.
Former mayors Ashraf and Shashidhar Hegde, Congress activists Vishwas Kumar Das, Subhodaya Alva, Shabeer, Baby Kundar, Padmanabha, Nazeer Bajal and Prem were present.
