Congress President Rahul Gandhi in his persuasion to garner lingayat votes met 111- year-old Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga mutt in Tumkur on Wednesday a continued effort to win Karnataka elections. Congress chief who is on his fifth leg of election campaign visited central Karnataka and also interacted with number of people to sway votes in favour of his party in the State. As the elections are just five weeks away, for Congress President it is crucial to prove a point and he is fighting it out with Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah with new found theories and strategies to retain power amidst anti incumbency. AT Davanagere a powerful trading centre with heavy lingayat concentration accused prime minister Narendra Modi Government of "disrespecting" and "demolishing" various institutions by having RSS men "sitting in every ministry and giving orders."
He said interacting with traders "I don't know if you all know that in every single minister's office, there is an RSS man sitting and giving orders. So what can you expect... nothing but disrespecting the institutions. The banking system of the country has been demolished by having this structure."
On the issue of demonetisation, Rahul said that the move had broken the country's banking system. "Don't take me lightly; you have no idea how badly our banking system has been damaged," he said. Accusing Modi of crony capitalism, Rahul said that a handful of people has captured India's banking system.
"Nirav Modi, (Vijay) Mallya, lalit Modi...around 15-20 people have captured our entire banking system; for them all doors are opened," he said. Criticising Modi's simplistic world view of some people being good and the rest bad, Rahul said: "According to Modiji income-tax people are good and small traders are bad. DeMo has unleashed income-tax officers on the trading community."