Bengaluru: Veteran Karnataka Congress Siddaramaiah has lavished praise on former chief minister Jagadish Shettar who jumped the ship from the BJP to join the Congress ahead of the upcoming assembly election. Jagdish Shettar joined Congress on Monday in the presence of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar giving a major jolt to the BJP and a boost to the Congress ahead of the assembly election scheduled next month.
Shettar is expected be given a prominent place in Congress politics in the Hubbali constituency. “I welcome former CM Jagadish Shettar to our party. He is known as a decent politician in Karnataka. Though he's from RSS, he's a secular person,” Congress leader Siddaramaiah said after Shettar joined the Congress.
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Siddaramaiah said he worked with Shettar as the opposition leader and he was the opposition leader when Siddaramaiah was the CM. “He was an honest party worker in BJP and always stood with the party, not for personal gain,” Siddaramaiah said. The Congress leader further said, “The way he (Jagadish Shettar) was treated in BJP, this shouldn't happen to anyone in any party. He is hurt now, and his community and supporters have been disrespected by BJP. After Jagadish Shettar has joined us, we will win more than 150 seats. His joining will give a boost to the party”.
Meanwhile, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said that the Congress welcomes Shettar into its fold and that the former CM has accepted the Congress party's ideology to maintain his self-respect. Shettar announced that the swap will be a strong rebel jolt to the saffron camp at a time when the battle for the Assembly polls is intensifying.
Shettar who hails from the Lingayat community is a prominent Lingayat face after BJP leader BS Yediyurappa.
