BENGALURU: A day after BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa’s statement on winning 22 seats in Karnataka in the coming Lok Sabha election following the surgical air strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and in Pakistan, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday said BJP was playing “cheap politics” at the cost of the soldiers.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of Jalamrutha initiative launched on Thursday, Kumaraswamy said the leaders in the Central government were playing with the lives of soldiers. “This is what I felt after seeing Yeddyurappa’s comment on winning 22 seats. These leaders are using innocent soldiers for their political gains. In order to get some political mileage for their party, they are making parents of soldiers lose their children, making children orphans, and their wives widows. This is a cheap political play by BJP,” he said.

When the media pointed out that Yeddyurappa was claiming that the media had misinterpreted his statement, Kumaraswamy said there is a video recording of his (Yeddyurappa’s) speech. “How can it be changed? When our Army and Air Force took so much risk and destroyed terror launch pads, these BJP people are celebrating by distributing sweets as if they were part of the mission,’’ he said.

Referring to Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and Indira Gandhi, he said there were wars fought under their governments’ too, and India had won most of these wars. “(But) No leaders ever made such cheap statements like the BJP leaders are doing now. No leader exploited these circumstances to get votes,’’ he said.