“No BJP leader will defect to the Congress. Such reports are nothing but false claims by Congress,” BJP leader and Union Minster Pralhad Joshi said in Hubballi on Sunday. The Congress is spreading such rumours to divert attention away from their failure to govern properly, he added.
He said that he had already spoken to BJP leaders like Shivaram Hebbar, S.T. Somashekar and Shankar Patil Munenakoppa and that they had all clarified that they would stay with the BJP.
Reacting to allegations that Karnataka government was releasing additional water to Tamil Nadu, the BJP leader said that the Congress Ministers had surrendered to Tamil Nadu only to maintain relations with other parties due to compulsions of coalition politics. That is not acceptable, he said.
