MYSURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has called for an ‘introspection meeting’ to analyse the Congress’ poor performance in the Old Mysore region in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Apart from Hassan and Chamarajanagar, the Grand Old Party failed to win a seat in the region which is the home turf of both Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar.
Siddaramaiah has called for a meeting with ministers, party legislators, and other senior leaders from Mysuru and Mandya regions to know where the party went wrong.
While BJP’s Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar won by a margin of 1,39,262 votes against Congress’ M Lakshmana in Mysuru-Kodagu Lok Sabha constituency, state JDS chief HD Kumaraswamy, who was the NDA candidate, defeated Congress’ Venkatramane Gowda (Star Chandru) by 2,84,620 in Mandya.
Siddaramaiah will arrive in Mysuru on Saturday and stay overnight to do a postmortem of the poll outcome. He will take note of the leads and performance of the party candidates in all the Assembly segments and analyse the reason for the party’s poor show.
Informed sources told TNIE that the CM has already spoken to his loyalists and Congress leaders to take note of the community-wise support and reasons for the Vokkaligas dumping them in the Lok Sabha elections despite the party accommodating the community in Rajya Sabha, Council, and boards and corporations.
They will also chalk out corrective measures and action plans to regain the confidence of the voters as the government plans to conduct zilla and taluk panchayat polls, apart from elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and Mysuru City Corporation.
Though there are reports that Muslims, Dalits, Kurubas, Christians, and those belonging to the economically weaker sections have supported the Congress, the party plans to focus on the microscopic communities that stood by Siddaramaiah’s Ahinda (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) movement and have now moved away from the Congress.
Meanwhile, the Congress’ campaign alleging that the BJP will change the Constitution if it gets a majority and Karnataka Social Welfare Minister HC Mahadevappa’s initiative to take out a month-long Constitution awareness jatha from January 26 this year have paid rich dividends in consolidating the Dalit votes.
The jatha covered more than 5,600 panchayats and reached out to all Dalit colonies in the state. It highlighted Constitutional rights, the contributions of Dr BR Ambedkar, and other issues like the importance of reservation to empower the poor and women.
Meanwhile, the Congress leadership is worried as microscopic communities are drifting from the party’s fold even after the government has covered all the families under the guarantee schemes. In no mood to take any chance, the Congress plans to launch various programmes along the lines of the Constitution jatha.
Sources said that the party now plans to accommodate them in a big way in the appointment to boards and corporations, and party organisations and win back their confidence so that the Congress vote bank does not erode further.