Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar
Bengaluru: Congress in Karnataka questioned the ruling BJP as to why it was bothered about the Congress collecting money from candidates aspiring for a ticket to contest the Assembly election which is less than six months away.
“The BJP collected election bond because it is in power but there is no one to give up the election bond. Hence, we are collecting from our party workers but why should it pain the BJP?,” Congress’s Karnataka president D K Shivakumar sought to know while talking to reporters.
The Congress recently announced that those aspiring for a ticket would have to buy a form for Rs 5,000. The general category candidates would have to pay Rs 2 lakh, and scheduled caste and scheduled tribes Rs one lakh towards party fund through demand draft.
“Despite the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president having assets worth crores of rupees, the Congress is going to loot lakhs of rupees from the ticket-aspirants. This will empty the pockets of the aspirants, yet those empty pockets will not get tickets,” the BJP tweeted on Friday.
Shivakumar said he is not bothered about comments passed by the BJP leaders and that the Congress would continue to collect funds.
To a query, the Congress State president said no party leader has expressed displeasure over the fund collection.
He said those unhappy with the move should not stay in the party.
“We took this conscious decision keeping everyone in mind. This is related to our party. Our party has to survive,” Shivakumar said.
