BENGALURU: The Congress, whose accounts have been frozen, has left its Lok Sabha election campaign to senior party leaders and ‘moneybags’ in the party.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and DCM DK Shivakumar appear to have passed on the responsibility of funding the election to their cabinet colleagues, who did not take the risk of contesting the LS polls, but got party tickets for their kin. Over a dozen senior leaders and ministers have got tickets for daughters, sons and other relatives, and the onus is on them to get them elected.
“Except for some candidates, the party need not worry about funds as ministers themselves can manage,” a Congress leader told TNIE.
Shivakumar, who is known to have invested a huge amount in the assembly elections, is now helpless. On Friday, he threw up his hands and claimed that he does not have money even to pay his staff at the KPCC office. He said about Rs 120 crore in donations collected by KPCC were frozen, and sought the help of the CM and party MLAs to fund the election.
He said the party is hamstrung by the Central government’s actions, and their Lok Sabha election campaign will suffer. The party has chosen affluent candidates like Venkataramana Gowda aka Star Chandru who has been managing leaders locally.
Ministers Satish Jarkiholi, Laxmi Hebbalkar, Eshwar Khandre, Shivananda Patil, Ramalinga Reddy, S S Mallikarjun and Madhu Bangarappa, who have got tickets for their kin, are unlikely to expect funding from the party. This also applies to AICC president Mallikarjuna Kharge’s son-in-law Radhakrishna Dodmani, say political analysts.
Shivakumar’s brother and Bengaluru Rural MP D K Suresh, and former Union minister K Rahman Khan’s son Mansoor Ali Khan from Bengaluru Central can manage on their own.
Hassan candidate Shreyas Patel, Bengaluru North candidate Prof Rajeev Gowda and SP Muddahanume Gowda in Tumakuru hail from political families, but may need some backing. Some Vokkaliga leaders are likely to help them, besides Shivakumar himself.
The CM is likely to help Rajashekhar Hitnal (Koppal) and Vinod Asuti (Hubballi-Dharwad), both from the Kuruba community, and M Lakshmana (Kodagu-Mysuru) as his prestige is at stake. The remaining candidates, including Anjali Nimbalkar (Uttara Kannada), R Padmaraju (Dakshina Kannada), K Jayaprakash Hegde (Udupi-Chikkamagaluru), Kumar Nayak (Raichur), Chandrappa (Chitradurga), HR Algur (Vijayapura) and Anandaswamy Gaddadevaramatha(Haveri-Gadag) are expecting support to give their opponents a tough fight. “If the party fails, they will lose, despite having an edge,” a Congress leader warned.