Country heading towards coalition govt: Siddaramaiah

The country was heading towards a coalition government as neither the Congress nor the BJP are unlikely to get an absolute majority despite claims by political leadership, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Monday.

He said the mood of the country is clearly in favour of bringing in a UPA government to reject communal and divisive forces.

The senior Congress leader observed that neither of the two national parties were in a position to cross the 150 mark out of 543, despite claims to the contrary by BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In Karnataka, he said the Congress along with its ally JD(S) is expected to win around 20 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies.

The first phase of polling is scheduled on April 18 in the state.

Talking to PTI in an exclusive interview during a campaign
trail, Siddaramaiah said: "Both Congress and BJP appear not to be in a position to get an absolute majority on their own. The UPA will however get a clear majority."
"According to me, the UPA will get enough seats and will
emerge as a single largest front. Naturally, other regional
parties will rally around," he said and added the
Mahagathbandhan (the grand-alliance) has taken place so that
He said, "The campaign is against the BJP which is a communal party. All secular forces which were fighting each other, have come together to prevent division of votes among secular parties. We are fighting against the communal party."
Siddaramaiah, who is also chairman of the Congress-JD(S)
Rubbishing claims that there was lack of coordination
between Congress and JD(S) workers resulting from an unfair
Gowda is contesting from Tumkur, his grandson and chief
minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Mandya
Asserting that Congress-JD(S) alliance will benefit in this
Lok Sabha poll, Siddaramaiah said, "Our vote share will be
definitely more than the BJP. Both voters, irrespective of what Congress and JD(S) got in the assembly poll, put together will get more votes."
On too much of Modi bashing in election campaign, he said, "It is because Modi is prime minister of this country and has completed five years. Who else should I attack? If you attack Modi, it means we are attacking the RSS. He is a symbol of RSS."
Even the BJP's manifesto talks of the same old issues such as