BENGALURU: Congress is ready to go all out to retain power in the state, with party national president Rahul Gandhi’s 3-day-tour of the state starting on February 10. The young leader will reach out to the masses in a bus with senior state leaders.AICC general secretary in-charge of party affairs in Karnataka KC Venugopal is said to have announced Rahul’s travel plans at the KPCC office-bearers’ meeting held in the city on Tuesday.
Apart from Venugopal, the meeting was attended by KPCC president G Parameshwara, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, many of his minsterial colleagues and 200 new office-bearers.Adopting novel ideas to woo the voters and reach out to masses, Rahul would tour Bengaluru and old Mysuru region in a bus from February 10 to 12. Senior state leaders would accompany him.
G Parameshwara told reporters that Rahul Gandhi would hold road shows and street corner meetings during the run-up to polls. The party would also organise a Scheduled Tribes rally at Hospet in Ballari on February 10, a farmers’ convention at a village in Chikkaballapur on February 11 and students’ rally in Mysuru. On February 12, Gandhi would address a mega rally of the State Congress in Bengaluru.
Ministers’ absence irks Venugopal
While all the ministers were instructed to attend the meeting, only a few, including RV Deshpande, Roshan Baig and HK Patil turned up at the meeting. According to sources, Venugopal was angry at the attitude of the ministers who did not care to attend the meeting. He was also flooded with complaints against the ministers for not accepting phone calls or meeting party workers. Venugopal warned of serious consequences if such ministers failed to mend their ways.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in his address at the meeting, attacked BJP. “What the BJP is preaching is not Hinduism. They just want to divide the society,” he said and wanted party leaders to create awareness about the pro-welfare policies implemented by the government.
The Chief Minister stressed the need to form booth-level committees in all 224 constituencies, He asked the party workers to enrol additional 50 votes in each booth. Party MLC CM Ibrahim’s meeting with JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda came under fire in the meeting as some of the leaders said such gestures would send wrong signal to the voters damaging the party’s prospects.