Senior Congress leaders, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC president G. Parameshwara, and prominent Cabinet Ministers, and hundreds of party workers participated in a rally taken out from Town Hall to Freedom Park to mark the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement.
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Siddaramaiah said, “Today is a significant day for the Congress, not for the BJP,” referring to the defeat of the BJP’s third candidate in the elections to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
Dubbing BJP’s concern for Dalits and Muslims as “dishonest”, he said State president of the BJP B.S. Yeddyurappa had visited homes of Dalits but consumed food prepared elsewhere. Claiming that the Congress government implemented most of the promises made in the elections manifesto, he invited the BJP for a debate on the achievements of the Modi government at the Centre.
“The BJP does not have any ideals and its leaders are trying to encash on emotions of the people through their Hindutva politics,” he said. Executive president of the KPCC Dinesh Gundu Rao said Ahmed Patel’s victory in the Rajya Sabha election was “a warning signal” to the BJP.
The Sangh Parivar and all other communal forces had “joined hands with the imperial rulers when the Quit India Movement was launched”, he said, and added that now they were claiming themselves to be patriots and promoting “pseudo nationalism”.