“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.
To a query on whether the Prime Minister Narendra Modi would visit Manipur, Mr. Joshi said the PM and Home Minister had visited the state for three days. Mr. Modi is closely monitoring the situation while sitting in New Delhi. “Earlier, during the Congress rule, over 700 people had died in riots in Manipur. Even then Prime Minister and the Home Minister had not visited the state, he said.
He said the BJP would win over 25 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 as it had provided a pro-people governance.