Former chief minister S.M. Krishna in an interview with Y.P. Rajesh, the resident editor of The Indian Express, Bombay, on the eve of his departure for Karnataka, to take over the Congress reins:
“The BJP will be our challenge in northern districts of Karnataka while it is the Janata Dal (S) in southern parts of the state. It is tough, but people have seen the BJP and Janata Dal regimes. They have tasted the rule of a Janata Dal-Congress coalition and a Janata Dal-BJP coalition and they have seen a single party Government before that, so now they can compare and make an assessment.
“My battleplan is to remind the people of Karnataka the kind of Government they lived under during those five years from 1999 to 2004. I’ll remind them of the degree of development and the programmes launched at that time which were on a sustainable wicket. Now, it is for the people to compare.”
Read the full article: ‘Fed up with coalitions, people will go for one-party rule’
Krishna is absolutely right.
Except that they will vote overwhelmingly for the BJP :p
s m krishna is a spent force in karnataka politics. he received the worst anti-incumbency mandate ever in india with 29 ministers asked to push off by electorate. even today if land saction to IT AND BT companies during his tenure were to be investigated it would become THE BIGGEST SCAM IN INDIAN POLITICS.
devegowda can only be happy with his return. devegowda is a lone crusader in the fight against CORRUPT PRACTICES OF NICE. inspite of short comings he refuses to give up.
worst case scenario, 30-40 seats to jd s , deve gowda will be bindaas.
only BP , no happy for congress ,bjp
The situation about the nature of contests in North Karnataka and South Karnataka is already known. My feeling is the party position will be slightly different from 2004 but the Congress could gain seats because of some JD(S) leaders crossing over. The BJP was expected to gain initially but as some time has passed, the issue might not strike so much of a chord. Also the absence of a good communicator could hurt them. JD(S) might have a much smaller tally.
May be that Gowdas(Vokkaligas) are feeling the heat of BJP and they know for sure if they leave JDS this time,it will take long time for Gowda community to make a come back.