Bengaluru, May 12: Hours before the counting for the Assembly elections in Karnataka starts, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai exuded confidence that Bharatiya Janata Party will return to power in the state while Congress general secretary in-charge Communications Jairam Ramesh said that BJP's defeat in Karnataka will open Delhi's door for Congress in 2024.
Meanwhile, both parties have started back-to-back meetings with their leaders to devise strategies ahead of the results. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) DK Shivakumar on Friday held a meeting with party president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in Bengaluru.
"Sometimes exit polls succeed and sometimes fail. Exit polls have their own theory, I don't believe them* We don't go by those samples, my sample size is too high and in that, we will have a comfortable majority. We will form our government with a majority. I do not know about JD(S), let them take their own call. I don't have any backup plan, my only plan is that the Congress party will come to power," he told ANI.
Congress's Karnataka president DK Shivakumar on Wednesday, had said he did not believe in the exit poll results, which predicted a hung Assembly while putting his party ahead, adding that they will cross the 146-seat mark.
"Exit polls have their own theory. We do not go by those samples, my sample size is too high and in that, we will have a comfortable majority. I do not know about JDS, let them take their own call. I do not have any backup plan, my only plan is that the Congress party will come to power," DK Shivakumar said ANI.
Giving a further push to the KPCC chief's confidence, Jairam Ramesh said,"Congress' victory in Karnataka is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's defeat because no one campaigned in Karnataka except him. After (BJP's) Karnataka's defeat, Delhi's door is open for Congress in 2024. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, we were there for 27 days in Karnataka and visited seven districts. We do not have any doubt. We will get majority votes. We have promised five guarantees in our manifesto and because of these guarantees Congress is guaranteed to win." He also ruled out the possibility of a coalition government in Karnataka with the JDS.
"I am absolutely sure that JDS will disintegrate... This time I do not think that there is any scope for a coalition government with JDS," Jairam Ramesh added.
The confidence in Congress is due to the exit polls which have given the grand old party a clear edge in Karnataka in the assembly elections held on Wednesday with four exit polls giving it a full majority and some predicting a hung assembly with an advantage to the party.
However, a few exit polls also said that BJP is ahead in the sweepstakes to form the government.
