The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Advantage Congress, or deuce?

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Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008
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Karnataka

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Advantage Congress, or deuce?

Special Correspondent

Krishna lobs question on announcement of chief ministerial candidate

‘It will be advantageous to Congress if party names chief ministerial candidate’
‘There will also be some advantage if the name is not announced before polls’

Bangalore: The former Governor of Maharashtra S.M. Krishna on Tuesday said it would be advantageous to the Congress if the party announced its chief ministerial candidate before the Assembly elections in the State.

He was speaking at a meet-the-press programme organised by the Bangalore Reporters’ Guild and the Press Club of Bangalore. There would also be some advantage if the name was not announced, he said.

Congress tradition

However, Mr. Krishna said it was a Congress tradition that it did not announce who would lead the government if the party won an election. In the 1999 elections, he was not projected as the chief ministerial candidate. Echoing the statements of other Congress leaders, he said the party was ready to face the elections at any time, but the Election Commission should set first right the anomalies in the electoral rolls.

Too many cooks?

Mr. Krishna, who has been appointed chairman of the Congress Election Management and Coordination Committee for the State, was asked ‘whether too many cooks would spoil the broth’, since Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president M. Mallikarjun Kharge and the former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had been appointed chairmen of the Pradesh Election Committee and the Campaign Committee respectively. This would not affect the election prospects of the party, he said.

Mandate

“Sometimes it will even help if all the cooks work in unison and with a sense of achieving the goal entrusted to them,” he said. Congress president Sonia Gandhi had given him a mandate to prepare the party to win the elections with the support and cooperation of all leaders and workers. He wanted to make Karnataka a Congress State once more, he said.

‘Unfinished job’

When it was pointed out that he had failed to achieve this in the 2004 elections, Mr. Krishna said he had returned to complete the unfinished job along with leaders such as Mr. Kharge and Mr. Siddaramaiah and thousands of party workers.

The people, he said, could compare his administration with that of his successors. What the people wanted was a programme-based government. They would certainly vote for a party that they perceived as the one that would ensure stability and improve their quality of life.

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