Congress gets busy with Council elections, hopes to retain seats

BENGALURU: In preparation for the upcoming Legislative Council polls to 25 seats from local bodies, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president DK Shivakumar and Congress legislature party leader Siddaramaiah have been holding continuous meetings with party leaders from different parts of the state. On Monday, they held discussions with leaders from Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Bengaluru Rural, Chitradurga, Davangere, Koppal and Raichur. On Sunday, they held meetings with leaders from Kalaburagi, Belagavi, Mysore, Bengaluru city and other areas.  

The party state leadership is working hard to ensure that it can retain its share of Council seats (14 out of 25). However, some suggest that it may be an uphill task for the party to do so. In closed-door meetings, some senior leaders are learnt to have raised doubts whether the party will be able to retain even half of the seats it holds. But KPCC working president Saleem Ahmed sounded confident. He told TNIE, “We will retain our share of 14 seats and we will even increase our tally. Price rise, especially of essential commodities, the Bitcoin scam, administrative failure on the Covid front and complete failure to release funds for development to panchayats should  favour the Congress,’’ he felt.

Former Bengaluru mayor and MLC P R Ramesh said, “We have empowered the gram panchayats and they should vote for us. The Congress has done more for them in the long term and we should expect better support.’’ One Congress MLC, however, expressed doubts, saying, “The last time the party was in power in the state and we did well. This time, how can we expect such optimism,’’ he asked.

A former Congress Member of Parliament said, “The party will find the going difficult where it is a triangular fight in certain districts of south Karnataka. Congress rebels will be an issue. In five of the constituencies, Congress stands a good chance, but in the other nine, we will have to slog it out.’’