Karnataka - Bangalore   

Blame game begins in the State Congress

BANGALORE: Now that the full results of the elections to the Legislative Assembly and details of the vote share of each party are out, the pent-up feelings among the top leaders over the failure to get a comfortable majority are coming out, especially in the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).

The Congress, which drafted the services of its front-ranking leaders such as the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, the Union Minister of State and party in-charge of Karnataka, Prithviraj Chavan, apart from the State stalwarts such as S.M. Krishna, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Siddaramaiah and C.K. Jaffer Sharief, is witnessing a blame game.

While Mr. Kharge maintained that the party increased its strength to 80 from 65 (in the previous House) and lost in several seats by narrow margins, Mr. Krishna said that the party would have fared better had he been given a free hand.

He has also pointed out several other blunders committed by the party.

The perception that Mr. Krishna wanted the people to believe, after his return to State politics, was that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had mandated him to bring the party to power and he was not interested in the post of the Chief Minister.

Mr. Krishna said that the party workers and people in the State were enthusiastic, but all this dissipated owing to various reasons.

Asked to comment on Mr. Krishna’s outbursts, Mr. Kharge refused to make any comments.

He was not ready to enter into any argument on the issue.

Instead, he said that it was for Mr. Krishna and the high command to sort out the matter. But, when he was reminded of the severe criticism of Mr. Chavan and Mr. Singh by the former Minister V. Somanna, who has been elected to the Assembly, Mr. Kharge said that he had been asked to explain.

In fact, the performance of the Congress in the State is not encouraging, if one goes by its vote share in the last few elections.

In 1978, the Congress, under the leadership of Indira Gandhi, got 44.25 per cent votes in spite of the split when D. Devaraj Urs’s outfit took away 7.99 per cent of votes.

In 1983, it secured 40.42 per cent of the votes, when it was defeated by the Janata Party.

The Congress got 40.82 per cent in 1985 elections and again lost to the Janata Party, which bagged 43.60 per cent of the votes.

The 1989 polls gave a thumping majority (178 seats) to the Congress with 43.76 per cent of votes.

The lowest vote share of the party in the last three decades was in 1994, when it got 26.95 per cent, and in 1999 the people favoured it by giving 40.84 per cent of votes. The vote share dipped to 35.27 per cent in 2004, plunging the State into a coalition arrangement.

This time, while the party has been able to increase its seats from 65 to 80, the vote share has dipped to 34.59 per cent.

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