Karnataka Polls: Rahul Gandhi asks his party not to let BJP cross 40 seats, fearing another 'operation'

AICC leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he was confident the Congress would win about 150 seats in the upcoming assembly polls in Karnataka. In a rally in Bidar, he also cautioned his own party leaders not to let the BJP cross a tally of 40 seats, lest it would try to wreck the government by subverting the public mandate again.

Gandhi was referring to the `Operation Lotus' by which the BJP dislodged the JDS-Congress coalition regime in 2019 and came to power. The operation involved 17 JDS and Congress MLAs resign their assembly membership and switch over to the BJP.

“We had won the last election. The BJP stole the government you all chose and then established a 40% commission sarkar (government),” he said. "A clear mandate is necessary so that the BJP has no chances of corruption," he added.


Gandhi called Bidar as the "karmabhoomi" of 12th century social reformer Basavanna, and lamented that people from the RSS and the BJP were “attacking Basavanna’s philosophy of inclusiveness. The BJP and RSS, he added, were spreading hate and violence, and stealing wealth from the poor to give it to a few rich billionaires.