Kick-starting the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign for the coming elections to gram panchayats in Dakshina Kannada, party’s State president and MP Nalin Kumar Kateel said on Saturday that the party intends to root out the Congress from such panchayats wherever the latter held sway.
Addressing the party’s gram swaraj convention at BC Road, Mr. Kateel said that the party has taken the gram panchayat elections as seriously as it did the Lok Sabha elections.
He said that the party is confident of taking control of over 80 % of gram panchayats in the State in the coming elections.
Mr. Kateel said that the Congress could not fare better in the last Lok Sabha elections because it ignored its grassroots workers and deviated from its original principles and ideals. But the BJP has not deviated from its principles, he said.
He said that the BJP constituting Pancharatna committees and organising Kutumbh Milan programmes in the grassroots level will help the party garner support in the coming elections.
In-charge of Dakshina Kannada and Minister for Fisheries, Ports, Inland Water Transport and Muzari Kota Srinivasa Poojary said that the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi intends to sanction ₹ 1 crore to ₹ 2 crore to each gram panchayat from the 15th Finance Commission grants. It will come as a huge relief for taking up development projects in the grassroots level.
Member of Parliament from Chikkamagaluru-Udupi Shobha Karandlaje said that of the 228 gram panchayats in Dakshina Kannada, the BJP had control over 148 panchayats now. Elections will be held to 225 gram panchayats this time. The party workers should create awareness on the development programmes taken up by the BJP-led Union and State governments at the grassroots level, she said.
Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan spoke.
Members of Legislatives Assembly Rajesh Naik U., Umanath A. Kotian, Y. Bharat Shetty, D. Vedavyasa Kamath and MLC Pratapsimha Nayak were present.
The party organised the gram swaraj convention in Puttur later in the day.