Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has claimed a strong, although not directly observable, support for the opposition INDIA bloc in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
This assertion was made during a campaign rally in Kalaburagi, where he also heavily criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign efforts and accused him of failing to fulfil his previous promises.
Kharge challenged Modi to swear by the Rama statue in Ayodhya and admit to the public whether his promises—such as redistributing ₹15 lakh from recovered black money to each citizen, doubling farmers' income, providing two crore jobs, and implementing a fair minimum support price—were kept.
Highlighting the continued relevance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the five guarantees implemented by the Congress government in Karnataka, Kharge argued that these initiatives are vital for the survival of the poor amidst rising prices.
Reflecting on the intense campaigning by Modi, Kharge suggested that it was indicative of an underlying public shift towards the INDIA bloc, prompting the Prime Minister to engage more deeply with communities, even in narrow lanes and through roadshows.
Kharge accused Modi of using agencies like the ED, Income Tax, CBI, and Vigilance to intimidate the public and questioned the integrity of former corrupt officials who, he claims, were cleansed of their corruption upon joining the BJP.
Moreover, Kharge alleged that the BJP has been actively undermining opposition-led governments in various states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, and Madhya Pradesh by destabilising and eventually overthrowing them, pointing to a pattern of undemocratic behaviour under Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
He also criticised Modi’s "guarantees," likening them to unfulfilled promises, while asserting that the Congress party's guarantees had been successfully implemented in Karnataka.
As Kharge continues to campaign for his son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani in Kalaburagi—a seat he once held and lost to a BJP candidate in 2019—these pointed criticisms and the invocation of grassroots support structures highlight the intense competition and the critical stakes of the upcoming electoral contest.
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