BENGALURU: As Congress and BJP eye maximum number of seats out of the total 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, the ruling Congress government is trying to break the party’s 20-year-old jinx of not winning seats in double digits in the last four elections.
It was way back in 1999 that the Grand Old Party won 18 seats. In 2004, it dipped to eight, in 2009 it was six and in 2014 nine. In the last election, it was just one. This time, however, the party is confident of at least 20 seats. Congress MLA and vice-chairman of the Election Campaign Committee in KPCC, Rizwan Arshad, said the last year’s Assembly poll results and social justice works have given them confidence.
“Our mass connect programmes taken up in the last ten months, including guarantees, will help us win more seats” he said. At the same time, all Southern states are not happy with the ‘’injustice’’ meted out to them by the Centre in allocating funds. “Also, people’s perception of Congress has changed in the last one month as NDA has indulged in corruption, as exposed in the recent electoral bond revelations,” he said.
Further, the BJP-JDS alliance will help Congress as regional party workers are not happy with the arrangement. “Workers are feeling dejected and many are joining Congress,” he said.
‘Congress depends on guarantees’
Political scientist Prof Sandeep Shastri said the polls this time are undoubtedly interesting. “Congress seems to be dependent on guarantee schemes and the political turmoil within BJP which they assume will work in their favour.
This time, Congress has also taken to an interesting gamble of fielding new faces and women candidates in more numbers,” he said. But the Modi factor will be the most challenging for the party in the state. Also, many sitting ministers were reluctant to contest, he added.