My contest from Badami an experiment to bridge south-north imbalance: Siddaramaiah

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has come up with a new theory justifying his decision to contest from Badami apart from Chamundeshwari for the May 12 Karnataka Assembly Elections.

While at first, he had said that he was under pressure from followers to contest the Badami seat, now he has said it is to bridge the regional imbalance between south and north Karnataka.

Posting the reasons on his Facebook, he said that there were complaints that several governments had ignored north Karnataka due to its distance from the state capital of Bengaluru.

"For many months now, there was pressure on me from leaders of this region and I hadn't taken that seriously. But I pondered over the reasons they gave that north Karnataka lagged behind in development compared with the south," he also said.

"My candidature from Badami is an extension of the concern my party has towards resolving the regional imbalance. We belong to Karnataka regardless of which part we are born in. While our government has adopted this message through administration, I want to send this message politically as well by contesting from Badami."

"If I'm able to bring the hearts of north and south Karnataka together, my Badami experiment will be deemed successful," the CM also wrote.