By IANS,
New Delhi : Hailing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory in Karnataka assembly elections, its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani Sunday said 2008 would turn out to be a year of change in national politics.
“After the BJP’s decisive victories in the Vidhan Sabha elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh towards the end of 2007, I had stated that 2008 would turn out to be a ‘Year of Change’ in national politics. My affirmation has been vindicated by the triumphant performance of the BJP in the Vidhan Sabha elections in Karnataka,” Advani said in a press release.
He thanked the people of Karnataka for giving a mandate to BJP and gave credit to the leadership of BJP chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yediyurappa.
“This is a verdict against the Congress party’s politics of opportunism and the JD(S)’s politics of betrayal,” Advani said.
The Karnataka polls, results of which were announced Sunday, set to rest all speculations of a hung assembly. The BJP got 112 seats in the 224-member assembly. The Congress could manage only 77 while Dewe Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) could win only 28 seats.
Advani said the people of Karnataka were not only influenced by local factors – as claimed by the Congress – but Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s “utter failure to control the prices of essential commodities, its soft and compromising policy on terrorism, and its insensitivity towards the plight of farmers”.
“I have no doubt that my party’s triumph in Karnataka will prove to be a turning point comparable to the quantum increase in parliamentary strength that the BJP achieved in 1989 (when BJP won 86 seats),” Advani said.
“This geographical expansion of the BJP, and the simultaneous shrinkage of the Congress party almost all over the country, shows the shape of things to come in the run-up to the next parliamentary elections,” Advani claimed.