BJP should focus on dalit, SC, ST votes to win next elections: Shettar

Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar on Saturday said BJP should focus more on dalit, SC and ST votes to gain majority in the next elections to the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha.

Speaking at the inauguration of BJP SC Morcha National office bearers and state presidents' convention, he said: "BJP has to concentrate on dalit votes to gain majority both at the national and state level."

Confidence has to be instilled in the minds of dalits, SC/ST and backward class people, he said, charging Congress of exploiting them as vote banks and neglecting their welfare, Shettar said.

Shettar claimed that after the BJP came to power in Karnataka, it concentrated more on the development of people belonging to dalit and backward class. "Thus now the BJP has become party of all sections of people."

He said his government had increased the budget allocation to Rs 1,000 crore for Backward Class and Rs 1,200 crore for SC/ST.

Shettar said in the elections held for MP and MLA reserved seats, the BJP candidates had bagged most of the seats and more and more leaders were joining the BJP.

BJP SC Morcha national president Dushyant Kumar Gautam, in his address, said since Congress was seeped in various corruption charges, BJP should make the most of the opportunity to win the next election and come to power at the Centre.

He said while BJP president Nitin Gadkari was ready to be probed by any agency into the corruption charges levelled against him, the Congress-led UPA government was not willing to investigate into corruption charges against AICC supremo Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra.

"The Haryana government gives a clean chit to Vadra at a speed unimaginable for a state administration," Gautam said.

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