Accusing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of using ‘Sadhaneya Samavesha’ — the convention organised in Tumakuru by the government to mark its third anniversary — to “blackmail” his party high command to protect his own chair, BJP State president B.Y. Vijayendra on Tuesday (May 19) predicted that the Congress will not be able to sustain the victory run beyond 2028.

Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, Mr. Vijayendra alleged that the Chief Minister had got the event organised as a “show of his strength” to safeguard his chair. “Tumakuru jamboree is of Siddaramaiah, by Siddaramaiah and for Siddaramaiah. For the Chief Minister, this ‘Sadhaneya Samavesha’ is a tool to cock a snook at his party’s high command,” he maintained.

Mr. Vijayendra alleged that the three years of “misrule” of the Congress is a “sordid tale of betrayal, dismal performance, collapse of law and order, rank minority appeasement and rampant corruption”. Anger and resentment against this government are intense and widespread, he said.

Accusing Mr. Siddaramaiah of encouraging his party workers to take law into their hands, Mr. Vijayendra said that the middle-level bureaucrats were demoralised due to this high-handed attitude of Congress workers in various parts of the State.

He accused the Congress of opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the sake of opposing and said that “Siddaramaiah does not spare a single chance to pick on Mr. Modi unnecessarily and needlessly.”