MANGALORE: Congress leader B. Janardhana Poojary, MP, has criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition for "failing" to give the people of Ullal the basic necessities of life such as water, social welfare benefits, and security against communal disturbance.

Mr. Poojary, who launched his "paadayathra" (campaign by foot) at Ullal as part of his campaign for the party candidate in the byelection for the Ullal Legislative Assembly seat here on Tuesday, said that the JD(S)-BJP combine had instead chosen to divide the voters into convenient cross-sections so as to gain more votes. He criticised the combine for dividing the voters on the basis of community, and said this was a mockery of democracy.

He said that the strategy of the JD(S) to field the second minority candidate in the Ullal constituency was a clear indication that it was "hoodwinking the voters". However, the voters in Ullal had seen through this "dirty trick" of the BJP-JD(S) combine. They had begun asking questions about the moral right of the coalition to ask for the support of the people when the BJP and its associated right-wing organisations had been allegedly instrumental in "engineering" the communal clashes in Ullal and Mangalore in October. All these factors would give the Congress a clear majority, he said.

Stating that the Ullal election was a larger contest than that in Chamundeshwari, Mr. Poojary said that the BJP-JD(S) combine was contesting purely on caste and communal lines, while the Congress had a wider canvass of development, social justice and secularism to offer to the voters. The ground signals could not be clearer at this point of time that the voters in Ullal had begun to reject the BJP and the JD(S).

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