BJP State president B.Y. Vijayendra has asserted that Karnataka is headed for mid-term elections, regardless of who succeeds Siddaramaiah as Chief Minister in the ongoing Congress power struggle.

Speaking to the media in Shivamogga on Wednesday (May 27), Mr. Vijayendra said the Congress high command’s marathon meeting in Delhi, which culminated in a directive to Mr. Siddaramaiah to step down, was itself an admission of the government’s failure. “This clearly shows that even the Congress high command has acknowledged that the Siddaramaiah-led government failed to deliver good governance to the people of Karnataka over the last three years,” he said.

Karnataka politics LIVE

Mr. Vijayendra argued that despite Mr. Siddaramaiah’s reputation as an experienced administrator, his tenure had thrust the State into deep debt and was marked by multiple corruption scandals. He dismissed the Congress party’s attempts to cite its recent bypoll victories as evidence of public support. “Bypoll results are not a yardstick for measuring a government’s performance. If they were, Siddaramaiah would not be losing his position,” he said pointedly.

Further, Mr. Vijayendra maintained that the Congress party was on a steady decline across the country, and that no replacement for Mr. Siddaramaiah would be able to arrest that slide. “Whoever takes over as Chief Minister, the Congress government will not complete its term. Mid-term polls are inevitable,” he declared.

‘Anti-people’

Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R. Ashok on Wednesday remarked that what Karnataka needs today is not merely a change of Chief Minister, but a complete change of the “anti-people Congress government”.

“Ever since the Congress came to power in 2023, governance in Karnataka has become a mirage. Development, welfare of people and farmers, and the future of our youth have all taken a backseat. The government is consumed by just one question — Who gets the chair?” he said in a social media post.