BJP is proud and justified in invoking PM Modi’s name while campaigning: Tara

Mangaluru: Actor Tara aka Anuradha on Thursday justified the move by the rank and file of the saffron party to invoke the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the run up to the general elections. Describing Modi as a galvanising force for the BJP cadre, Tara tore into the Congress and JD(S), who she said had no qualms about invoking the legacy of their leaders including Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi or former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and his extended clan.
Drumming up support for party candidate for Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency, Nalin Kumar Kateel, at the city’s bustling fish market here, Tara said the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on April 18 and April 23 in Karnataka is all about the nation, and not about local issues. “The mood of the electorate is clearly geared in this direction. They are ready to repose their faith in the five-year corruption-free and nationalistic-centred administration that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given,” she said.

In such a scenario, the candidate – Nalin Kumar Kateel— in this case, becomes secondary, as the country is eager to repose their faith in Modi for a second term, and will do so through Nalin Kumar, she said. “Nalin on the other hand has his own list of achievements and is ranked the seventh-best performing MP in the state and the top MP from Karnataka,” she said, adding the Modi factor with Nalin’s work on the ground will result in good tidings for the BJP.

Referring to the constituents she met – the fisherwomen – Tara said the Modi government has fulfilled a long standing demand of the fishermen’s community in setting up a separate ministry for them. Thus far, the Union ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare handled issues related to fishermen, she said, adding carving out a separate ministry will enable the government to give pointed focus on a host of issues they face at the local and national level.

Pointing out that she is just an ordinary party worker of the BJP to give any sort of assurances regarding various problems that the fisherwomen poured out before her, Tara said the party has organised a fishermen’s convention on Tuesday. “The party will give these fisherwomen and all other stakeholders a forum to air their grievances at this convention,” she said, adding it is up to the state government and the local administration to resolve the issues raised by them.

On criticism by chief minister H D Kumaraswamy to actors openly canvassing for independent candidate Sumalatha in Mandya, Tara said Kumaraswamy himself is very much associated with the industry he is criticising, as a distributor first and also as his son Nikhil is an actor. “We actors too are very much part of the society and not cut away from it,” she said, adding actors work hard to earn their livelihood and that the chief ministers criticism is misplaced in this regard.

The state government is almost non-existent in Karnataka. The situation in the state will improve when the state too has a BJP government to go with a BJP government at the centre. There is no ‘maithri sarkara’ (friendship government) in the state. Instead, what we have is a ‘my three’ government –which is a father, son and grandson government—which is there for all to see. – Tara, actor