Congress party’s lok Sabha candidate from Bastar Deepak Karma said on Tuesday that Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate Soni Sori contesting against him enjoys no popular mandate in the region.
“It’s not going to make any difference to me,” Karma told reporters at his residence here.Deepak is the son of Salwa Judum leader Mahendra Karma, who was among the Congress leaders brutally massacred by Maoists in an attack on the party’s convoy in Jeeram valley on May 25 last year.
He said that the ticket offered to him was as a result of the martyrdom of his father.“Similarly, I suggest that Pratibha Pandey, the daughter of late Union Minister Vidyacharan Shukla, should also be offered a ticket to contest the lok Sabha polls on the basis of the latter’s martyrdom,” Karma said.On BJP’s lok Sabha candidate Dinesh Kashyap, Karma said that there was almost ‘zero’ development during his tenure as MP in Bastar.
“Considering this situation, the voters are with me. I will get full benefit of this poll,” he said.On the prevailing situation in Bastar, he said total anarchy was prevailing all over the region. “Unemployment and illiteracy are at its peak and people are desperate to get even basic facilities such as good roads and power,” he added.He said that the BJP Government is making a mockery of the poor by distributing ‘chana’ (gram), rice and ‘chappals’ (slippers).
The government is talking about good governance. Bastar needs cottage and small industries, Karma said. The people of Bastar are not getting advantage of Central schemes, he said.