Amit Shah's gaffe leaves Yeddyurappa redfaced, Congress happy

A slip of the tongue by BJP president Amit Shah has left his chief ministerial face BS Yeddyurappa embarrassed and rival Congress in Karnataka laughing its head off.

This happened during the press conference in Davanagere on Tuesday while Shah reeled off a list of charges against the Siddaramaiah government in the state. Carried away by the heat of the moment, Shah said: "if there was ever a competition of the most corrupt government then the Yeddyurappa government is number one..."

There was a second of stunned silence before Shah corrected it to say he meant Siddaramaiah. Yeddyurappa sitting next to him looked redfaced. Soon, copies of the video clip flooded Twitter and Congress leaders were rubbing their hands in glee.


Congress president Rahul Gandhi said it was a gift from Shah and that it got their campaign off to a "fabulous" start on the day elections were announced.


BJP hit back with its Karnataka cell tweeting it was "silly" of the Congress president to base his campaign on a slip of the tongue.

Divya Spandana Ramya the social media head of Congress posted another video - without a date or location - sayng: "This isn’t the first time btw- what exactly are Amit Shah’s feelings towards yedyurappa? All’s not good in the hood."

What made the gaffe even more ugly was that Yeddyurappa had a history of resigning from the government, and from his party, over corruption charges. In 2011, Yeddyurappa had to step down, following a report from the Karnataka Lokayukta probing the illegal mining case. He also left BJP and formed a new regional party a few months later, only to merge it with BJP in 2014.

The person laughing the loudest was CM Siddaramaiah who has been under siege over the last few days by Shah and other BJP leaders.


With election dates now announced , the Congress campaign machinery in Karnataka may look to throw this back whenever BJP leaders raise the issue of graft.