E-Paper
Cong to take on BJP govt over graft charge in Karnataka
The state will go to polls in a single phase on May 10, with results set to be announced on May 13, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday.
Bengaluru: The Congress intends to fight the high stakes Karnataka assembly elections with a focus on allegations of corruption against the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government and its own list of promises to the people of the state, party leaders said on Wednesday.
The state will go to polls in a single phase on May 10, with results set to be announced on May 13, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday.
The Congress was the first off the blocks in the announcement of its first list of candidates on March 25, and senior leaders said this showed the party’s state of preparation. Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar said that the party had been ready for at least three months. “The BJP is going to get only 60 to 65 seats in this election. We will get a majority and come to power,” he said.
The first list that the Congress announced on Saturday included the declaration that former chief minister Siddaramaiah will contest from Varuna, while Shivakumar will contest from the Kanakapura assembly constituency. Former deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, another heavyweight, will contest from Koratagere seat.
Senior Congress leaders said that they will concertedly raise the issue of corruption allegations against the BJP government. The approach has been adopted in recent months. In September, the party launched the “PayCM” campaign for which posters were put up across the state with a QR code that led to a website called “40% Sarkara”, a term alluding to a charge levelled by contractors in Karnataka that commissions were needed to be paid to get work done in the state.
The BJP had hit back at the allegations with chief minister Bommai accusing the Congress of corruption during its reign, and saying that the opposition had no moral right to talk of corruption.
The Congress has also announced a series of welfare schemes that they will implement if they come to power. The four promises so far include stipends for unemployed youth, ₹2,000 payments for women heads of families, 200 units of free electricity, and ten kilograms of rice to the poor.
Congress president Shivakumar also said the party will benefit from a hastily announced reservation rejig last week where the BJP moved to woo Lingayats and Vokkaligas, two influential communities in Karnataka, by upping their allocation, but had scrapped a separate reservation for Muslims. “No one is happy with the new reservation quotas announced by the BJP. If the matter is taken to court, it won’t stand,” he said.
Another senior Congress leader said that the party had been revitalised by the middle of last year, naming two particular events that created a buzz. “First was the big birthday celebration of Siddaramaiah in August last year and the second was the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The birthday event gave a chance for the cadre to come together. In the case of Bharat Jodo Yatra, people said it would work only in Kerala and not Karnataka. But the number of people walking with Rahul Gandhi showed how people see hope in the Congress party,” the leader, who did not want to be named, said.
But the Congress must still grapple with a thinly veiled leadership struggle between its two tallest leaders- Shivakumar and former CM Siddaramaiah- who both aspire for the next CM’s chair. On March 21, addressing the party’s “Yuvakranti Samavesha” in Belagavi, senior leader Rahul Gandhi made it a point to say the party would be united and had said, “We will fight the election together. All Congress leaders will fight together.”
