Home Minister Amit Shah expressed confidence on Saturday that the BJP will win 15-20 seats more than the halfway mark in Karnataka assembly polls and asserted that its support base remains intact despite defection by some party leaders, noting that historically its rebels have not won and "this will prove true this time also".
With the Congress targeting the central government over Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from Lok Sabha following his conviction in a defamation case, Shah told India Today in an interview that "no family is above the law in India and the law is above all".
Gandhi vacated his government bungalow on Saturday after he was served a notice for eviction and claimed that he is paying the price for speaking the truth.
Replying to a question on Gandhi playing "victim", he said, “We never asked Rahul Gandhi to disrespect the OBC community. He himself decided not to apologise.
"The law under which he was convicted was made by the Congress government. Then prime minister Manmohan Singh tried to withdraw that law but Rahul Gandhi himself tore down the ordinance. Now he should not play the victim. No one should think that any family is above the law.” The ordinance, if passed by Parliament, would have spared any convicted MP from immediate disqualification.
To a question about the allegation that the CBI summoning former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik is linked to his recent criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, the home minister said such a charge is not true as he was called by the probe agency earlier too.
"I can say with complete conviction that the BJP has done nothing that needs to be covered up. If someone is levelling allegations after parting ways with us, then it should be evaluated accordingly by the media and people," he said.
On Karnataka assembly polls scheduled for May 10, he said the BJP will get 15-20 seats more than the halfway mark of 112 seats in the 224-member legislature.
He rejected the Congress' allegations of corruption against the BJP government in Karnataka as "baseless".
They are not substantiated by any court and have been fabricated by the Congress to cover up corruption during its own regime, Shah claimed, accusing the opposition party of using Karnataka as its "ATM" when it was in power.
The Congress has no answers to its apathy towards Karnataka during its regime, he said, adding that when the Congress-led UPA was in power during 2009-14, the Centre released Rs 94,224 crores to the state.
Prime Minister Modi increased the amount to over Rs 2.26 lakh crore during 2014-19. The tax devolution and grant-in aid was Rs 22,000 crore but has been increased to Rs 75,000 crore, he added.
Attacking the Congress, he said its government violated the Constitution by providing four per cent reservation for Muslims in the state.
The Constitution does not allow any kind of reservation on the basis of religious identity, he noted.
The BJP government has scrapped this reservation and increased the quota for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Vokkaligas and Lingayats, he said.
While the Congress "protected and nurtured" the PFI, a radical Islamic organisation now banned by the Modi government, he said its cadres used to commit murders in broad daylight in the state.
PM Modi banned it and provided security to the people of the state, he said.
On the recent terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, he said, “We will give a befitting reply to any attack on India.” He added that violence against the foreign embassies of India will not be taken lightly by the Modi government.
On the "personal attacks" launched on Modi, he said, "Personal attacks on Modi ji are not new and began long back by Sonia Gandhi who had called him 'Maut Ka Saudagar'. But whenever he faced such attacks he emerged stronger".
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.