Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday claimed that he is yet to emerge from the rout he suffered during the elections to the Legislative Assembly from Chamundeshwari constituency in 2018.
Speaking at a function to felicitate victorious gram panchayat members form Chamundeshwari constituency, Mr. Siddaramaiah expressed his hurt by seeking to know if his defeat was “just and fair”, particularly when he was contesting as the Chief Minister of the State.
He claimed that he would have contested from Varuna Assembly segment during the elections and won. But, there has been the contribution of people from Chamundeshwari constituency also in his ascent to the post of the State’s Chief Minister.
The main reason for him to choose Chamundeshwari during the 2018 Assembly elections was that he started contesting elections from the constituency and wished to wind up his electoral politics from the same constituency. But, he said he never expected to lose, he claimed and reminisced the period when people of the constituency would themselves mobilise funds for his electoral campaign.
It may be recalled here that Mr. Siddaramaiah had expressed similar emotions when he addressed workers from the constituency before the gram panchayat elections.
Meanwhile, Mr. Siddaramaiah, while addressing a similar convention to felicitate workers from Varuna assembly segment earlier in the day, expressed confidence that the Congress party will return to power in the State during the next elections.
During the assembly elections of 2018, the former Chief Minister said the Congress party had secured 38 per cent of the popular vote against the 36 per cent polled by the BJP. However, the BJP won 104 seats while the Congress managed to win 70 seats.
The BJP, the Congress leader contended, managed to capture power by “purchasing” 17 MLAs from the Congress and JD(S).
The BJP government is not in power by winning a popular mandate during the 2018 assembly elections, Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
During the recently held elections to gram panchayat, the Congress party has won the most number of seats followed by BJP and JD(S) in the State. But, in Mysuru district Congress was in the top position followed by JD(S) and BJP respectively.
Mr. Siddaramaiah claimed that the Congress workers had won a majority of seats in the 11 out of the 14 gram panchayats in Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency. In Varuna, the party workers had bagged the most number of seats in 26 out of 32 gram panchayats, he said.
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