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Karnataka Congress president, CM go on separate tours of state ahead of elections
BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje said that the message seemed to be that Siddaramaiah would take credit if the party wins.
The decision of the Congress’ Karnataka unit chief G Parameshwara and chief minister Siddaramaiah to tour the state separately just six months ahead of the assembly elections has added fuel to speculations about a rift in the party.
Siddaramaiah is on a tour of the 124 constituencies where the Congress won in the 2013 assembly elections and Parameshwara is visiting the other 100.
The Bharatiya Janata Party called the separate tours an indication that Siddaramaiah, who shifted from the Janata Dal (Secular) to the Congress in 2006, was becoming bigger than the local Congress party.
BJP’s member of Parliament Shobha Karandlaje said that the message seemed to be that Siddaramaiah would take credit if the party wins.
“If it loses in the elections, clearly he will then put the blame on to the Congress party,” Karandlaje said.
However, the Congress said the BJP’s claims were merely rumours and that they were desperate attempts by the saffron party to rake up issues, citing an upcoming tour in March, where all party leaders will participate.
“The decision for the chief minister and the party president to tour separately was taken by the party high command,” KC Venugopal, Congress vice-president in-charge of the state, told the Hindustan Times.
Venugopal said the logic behind the move was that it would take three months to tour all the 224 assembly constituencies in the state. “By having two separate tours we can cover this much quicker. Besides, the chief minister has to present the budget in February,” he added.
Dinesh Gundu Rao, working president of the state Congress, said there might have been minor differences between Siddaramaiah and Parameshwara, but these were similar to disputes among brothers.
“On all the important issues, like the manifesto and our campaign strategy, there is complete unity.”
Gundu Rao said the real division was in the BJP, where, he said, there were clear signs of discord among the leaders.
“It is because the BJP has no standing in the state that they are spreading these rumours of a difference. When we hit the campaign trail together from March 1, our unity will be there for all to see,” he said.
Senior journalist and faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies Narendar Pani said the decision to go on separate tours needed to be interpreted as an exercise in coalition building.
“In Karnataka, there are no pan-regional leaders and most of them are leaders of their own communities. As a result, there is always a need to build coalitions, which requires each leader to win over their community first,” Pani said.
Siddaramaiah hails from the Kuruba caste, which is categorised as backward, and Parameshwara is a Dalit.
Pani said the trend of leaders campaigning separately went back to the times of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda.
“He would always address rallies by himself and ask leaders of other communities to bring the votes from their respective communities.”
