BENGALURU: Congress ticket aspirants from across the state, who have sent in their applications to the KPCC office paying Rs 2 lakh each, were disappointed as state party chief DK Shivakumar reportedly did not give them a chance to speak during a virtual meeting on Sunday.
While 1.450 aspirants have applied, around 900 logged in for the Zoom meeting at 4 pm. Though they waited for their turn, they did not get a chance and the meeting ended at 6 pm. “I was eager to speak and thought the leaders would pick aspirants randomly to express our views. But I was disappointed as it was one-sided with a heavy dose of instructions,” rued an aspirant from Chikkaballapur district.
Main criteria is winnability, says Siddu
Shivakumar said the candidates to contest the 2023 Assembly polls will be chosen based on an internal survey and the opinion of leaders from the respective Assembly constituency. CLP leader Siddaramaiah said winnability is the main criterion. The aspirants were instructed to keep an eye on the deletion of voters from the electoral list.
“This is a good task as only those who are really with the party will take up, while others will get eliminated,” said Iqbal Ahmed, a senior leader of the party and an aspirant for the Tumakuru City seat. What impressed the aspirants was a slide presentation showing the KPCC war room, set up to handle 2023 Assembly polls that is headed by Sasikanth Senthil, a former IAS officer. He said,
“Around 3-4 per cent of Congress voters do not turn up for voting on the polling day and that translates to 20-30 seats.” KPCC working president Salim Ahmed, who was the cohost for the meeting, said that another meeting is likely to be held in which AICC General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala, who skipped Sunday’s meeting, will interact with the aspirants.