'BJP list of candidates for K'taka polls highly polluted'

Bengaluru: Senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Monday mocked at the list of BJP candidates for the Karnataka Assembly polls, calling it "highly polluted, criminalised and poisoned".

Moily, however, parried a question about 32 Congress nominees having a criminal background. Speaking to reporters here, he said the party had conducted three internal surveys, and was pretty sure it would secure more than 130 seats in the 224-member Assembly. He claimed there was no anti-incumbency factor against the Congress government. "There is no anti-incumbency against the Congress government. Any number of meetings by PM Modi cannot change the election results. We will win more than 130 seats," the former Union minister said. He said the Congress party was very strong in 154 rural constituencies due to various welfare schemes like the 'hunger-free Karnataka' project.

Moily said the BJP's list of candidates looks like that of the Karnataka Janata Party, which the party's chief ministerial nominee B S Yeddyurappa had floated after quitting the saffron party. Moily, who heads the Congress's manifesto committee, said Yeddyurappa, the state BJP chief, was wreaking "revenge" on sincere party workers. "Yeddyurappa's BJP is nothing but the Karnataka Janata Party floated by Yeddyurappa. He has taken revenge on all the BJP members and is giving ticket to KJP people.

The BJP list is highly polluted, criminalised and poisoned," he said, adding "BJP is a divided party now". Moily said former chief minister SM Krishna, who quit the Congress and joined BJP, had thought he would get respect there. Instead, his candidates were denied ticket, he said.