Union Home minister Amit Shah (file photo)
Mangaluru: In the communally volatile district of Dakshina Kannada, the ruling BJP in Karnataka is looking forward to the visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday to capitalise on his presence for the upcoming assembly elections, spicing the trip with programmes that suit the Hindutva agenda of the party.
In the upcoming state assembly elections due in May, the BJP is getting itself ready for a keenly contested battle of the ballot with the Congress and JD(S). Therefore, the state party leadership is going to pull all stops with a high-decibel campaign, in which Amit Shah is expected to play a key role.
Though Shah's visit this time is official in his capacity as the first Union Minister for Co-operation, the BJP sees an opportunity to turn his visit into a campaign for the assembly polls.
The official function of Shah is the inauguration of the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Co-operative Limited (CAMPCO) at Puttur in the district. Co-operation is an area which the BJP has been promoting under the Centre by forming a central ministry dedicated for it, and geared to get the better of parties in certain states dominating the co-operative sector which enables them to wield influence at the grassroots level. It is significant that the party's top campaigner is also handling the union ministry for the same.
Later, he is scheduled to inaugurate the Bharat Mata Mandir built by Dharmashree Pratisthan at Hanumagiri, which is the second temple in south India for Bharat Mata after the one in Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.
Dharmashree Pratisthan sources said the temple has been constructed at a cost of Rs 3 crore with the objective of inculcating a sense of patriotic feeling among the people, representing an obvious intertwining of religious practice with political dimensions.
The BJP plans to ensure the participation of at least one lakh people for the function, party sources said.
Shah will garland the statue of Bharat Mata and later pay floral tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti in Puttur. He will also visit Hanumagiri temple at Ishwaramangala and offer worship.
The BJP is planning to use the visit as the start of their election campaign in the district, often described as the party's 'Hindutva laboratory' in Karnataka, and its gateway to the south, when all other southern states are ruled by non-BJP governments.
One of the most communally polarised districts in the state, Dakshina Kannada had last year witnessed murders along communal lines.
The murder of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader Praveen Nettaru in July last year, followed by the killing of Fazil at Surathkal had further fuelled the communal conflict in the region.
As Shah has not visited the district in the recent past, the BJP wants to extract maximum political mileage out of the visit of the party's top leader.
In the last Assembly elections, BJP had won seven out of eight seats in Dakshina Kannada. The lone winner for Congress was U T Khader in Mangaluru segment. The party had also won the Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha seat through its present state president Nalin Kumar Kateel.
The seats from the district are crucial for BJP to retain its hold in the coastal belt, while the opposition Congress is struggling hard to regain its lost glory in the region.
Congress leader and former MLC Ivan D'Souza has asked BJP leaders to apprise the Union minister about the pathetic condition of roads in the district. "We want the minister to talk about development instead of conducting road shows," he said at a press meet here on Thursday.
All official arrangements are being made to ensure security for the Union Home Minister's visit. ADGP (law and order) Alok Kumar, IGP (western range) Chandragupta and district superintendent of police Vikram Amathe are overseeing the security arrangements.
(Based on PTI story with edits)