Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday called upon the people of Karnataka to unite and vote for Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls, failing which the future of the next generation "will be jeopardised".
Emphasizing that the unity of people in the elections as "important", Kharge sought their support in forming the Congress government with an "overwhelming majority".
"This is an important election and unitedly we all need to vote for Congress and support Congress to win an overwhelming majority. If we don't unite and support Congress today, then our next generation's future will be jeopardised," Kharge said.
"We need to remember Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru for their contribution to democracy. But there are some people these days who did nothing for freedom but claim themselves to be great patriots and nationalists," he added taking a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Hailing the previous Congress governments for their work in developing infrastructure and other sectors in the country, the party president questioned the BJP if they have done anything for the nation.
"It was our leadership- the Congress leadership which built rural villages, primary schools, high schools, ITI, IIS, engineering colleges and medical colleges. What have they done? They are closing schools. Government schools are being closed to promote private schools," he said.
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"Since democracy was protected and strengthened by us therefore they are enjoying their rights. This very Democracy enabled Modiji to become the prime minister of this country. Otherwise, India would also have become a dictatorship like our neighbouring countries," Kharge added.
He accused the BJP of peddling lies to seek votes.
"We speak the truth before the people and BJP uses lies to ask for votes. I can give you many examples. For the existing double road, they add additional two lanes and claim it as their project. They paint an old railway engine and claim it as a new train service between Mysuru to Varanasi. Actually, it was done by us when I was the Railway Minister," he claimed.
Karnataka will go to Assembly polls on May 10 and the counting of votes will take place on May 13.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)