Our leaders are holding meetings, anything can happen in politics: Shivakumar

Bengaluru: Commenting on the ‘below-par’ performance by the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections, Karnataka Congress President and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said on Tuesday that “our leaders are holding meetings, anything can happen in Indian politics”.

Speaking to reporters here, Shivakumar said, “The BJP has failed to get a majority on its own and they have to accept the verdict. People have rejected their strategy of breaking parties in Maharashtra. People have also rejected the politics of emotion.”

He added that the BJP was saying that it would win more than 400 seats, but it has fallen way short of that.

“The results clearly show that there is no Narendra Modi wave, or Ram Mandir wave even in North India. The BJP has lost even in Ayodhya,” Shivakumar said.

“The results have made it clear that the popularity of Prime Minister Modi has gone down drastically, including in the Hindi belt. The BJP has to admit that it hasn’t got a majority. The party which won 303 seats last time has been reduced to 243 seats. It is now dependent on other parties,” the senior Congress leader said.

“The Congress party is nearing the 100-seat mark which shows that the people have reposed faith in the party. This revival is due to the tireless efforts of our leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, who took out the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Priyanka Gandhi also contributed significantly to this revival,” Shivakumar said.

“The people of Karnataka have blessed us with many seats and we are thankful for that. Our tally has gone up from 1 to 9 in the state, though we were expecting 14 seats.” he said.

Asked if the guarantee schemes failed to pay off in Karnataka, he said, “It is difficult to say. We were expecting 14 seats; we did not get the expected results from Kittur Karnataka and Bengaluru.”

Replying to a query on Exit Polls, he said, “I had said that I do not believe in Exit Polls. I had also said that we would win double-digit seats, but we missed that target narrowly.”

“The performance of the Congress in the Old Mysuru region has fallen compared to the Assembly elections, but that has been a trend for a long time. This was the case when S.M. Krishna was the Chief Minister. It looks like this is the political nature of the state,” Shivakumar added.