Shivamogga: Swaraj India Party President Yogendra Yadav, on May 6, opined that people should vote for a party only after carefully weighing the values of the union government and Karnataka government.
Speaking at a press conference here, Yadav criticised the Congress governement in the state and the union government for neglecting the water scarcity, border disputes and other local issues.
Taking union and state governments to task on the problems faced by people in Karnataka, Yadav said “Draught affected farmers of Karnataka suffer immensely. The farmers find neither market for their produce nor support price as a guarantee against price fall. Prime minister and the state government who promised to create enough jobs have stopped talking on the matter.”
He said that the Swaraj India decided to contest the elections as the national parties failed to understand and remedy the problems of the citizens.
He also alleged that politics is being used only as means to win election. The elections have turned into a spending spree for political parties, he alleged.
Lamenting the inability of the JD(S) to be a powerful local party, he alleged that JD(S) had sold its candidates to the highest bidder.
Swaraj India is fighting Karnataka elections as a part of Mahamaitri, a coalition of various social movements led by writer Devanur Mahadeva and social activist S R Hiremath. Yadav said that Swaraj Party had fielded 11 candidates for the Karnataka elections and Mahamaitri had 8 candidates in the fray. “This is our small experiment”, he added.
He said that the strongest candidate of the party was contesting from Melukote Constituency. Yadav said, “The party has fielded Darshan, son of farmer leader Late Puttannaiah, from Melukote constituency. He is the strongest candidate of the party in the Karnataka elections.”