Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win full majority in the upcoming 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections. “We are asking for a full majority because we did not get it in 2018, and we faced many problems. When the Narendra Modi government is there in Delhi, we need a double engine government for both the state and the Union developing together,” she said while speaking to TNM. She also said that BJP will get more than 130 seats.
According to her, BJP’s promise to provide gas cylinders to all Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in Karnataka celebrating Ugadi, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Deepavali comes due to the state having a large number of BPL families who use firewood. The announcement was made in the party's election manifesto, which was released on May 1. Under this scheme, BPL families in the state will receive one free cooking gas cylinder each during the months of the three festivals.
“Karnataka has many BPL families, and many suffer during these festivals. They also use firewood. That’s why we thought we should give clean energy to everyone and that is why we are giving three cylinders during Ugadi, Ganesh Chathurthi and Diwali,” she said speaking to TNM. When asked why this provision was made available only to a particular community and not everyone, she said it was because a majority of BPL families in the state celebrated these festivals.