Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi on Thursday conceded that the Bharatiya Janata Party has not been able to strengthen the party in southern states. His comment came as the trend of counting votes for Telangana elections showed the BJP trailing far behind the Congress and the BRS. Joshi, however, exuded confidence that the Lok Sabha elections next year would be different for the saffron party.
"We are not able to build the party as expected in southern states. As far as Telangana is concerned, we will perform much better in Lok Sabha elections," the Union minister said.
As per the latest available figures (2 PM), the BJP was leading in 8 constituencies — behind the Congress and the BRS, which were leading on 63 and 40 seats.
He also said that the people of the country had placed their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and this was reflected in the Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan counting trends. "People have totally endorsed the leadership and program of PM Modi and specially in northern part of India people have totally rejected the Congress party. Only in Telangana, they (Congress) can feel satisfied that's also because in southern states, except Karnataka, the presence of BJP is not there," he said.
The BJP, which was in power in Karnataka until this year, lost the state to the Congress in the Assembly election. The Congress, despite several issues, including perceived factionalism between DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, managed to secure majority.
DK Shivakumar On Telangana Poll Results
Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, who is also an observer for the Congress along with other party leaders Dr Ajoy Kumar, K Muraleedharan, Deepa Das Munshi, and KJ George, said that the Telangana results reflected the victory of the people. "It's not a personal win, it's a victory of the people of Telangana, who have paid their gratitude to Sonia Gandhi for giving them Telangana," he said.