Congress taskforce arrives in Bengaluru to analyze Lok Sabha election defeat

BENGALURU: Senior Congress functionary Madhusudan Mistry, heading a three-member team, has arrived in Bengaluru to find out the real reason – Satya Shodhana — behind Congress’ below-par performance in the Lok Sabha elections. While the party was expected to win 14-15 seats, it got only nine.

Mistry, and Lok Sabha members Gaurav Gogoi and Hibi Heden, who are also part of the team, will meet Congress Working Committee members, AICC office-bearers, sitting ministers, senior leaders, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members, MLAs, MLCs and a cross-section of leaders.

They will try to find out how the party gave big leads to the opposition even in constituencies where party leaders are MLAs and ministers. They will ask leaders why the ministers who were given the responsibility of different constituencies underperformed.

The most obvious deduction is that JDS, which is in alliance with BJP, managed to transfer its votes to the saffron party in South Karnataka. But the team will go beyond that and try to find out how relatives of leaders were given tickets in such large numbers which reportedly upset party workers.

Ahead of the elections, it was common to hear from Congress workers that they were there only to work, while khandani party leaders were there to enjoy power. The massive leads that winning opposition candidates enjoyed can also be construed as anti-incumbency setting in against the state Congress government, barely a year after coming to power, some leaders said.

Workers continue to complain that party leaders don’t pick up calls from them or the media and if this continues, the party will not be able to do well in the upcoming zilla and taluk panchayat and BBMP elections. Former Rajya Sabha member L Hanumanthaiah said, “If the Congress leadership was serious, it have could have worked more thoroughly on all fronts and proactively settled issues of groupism which cost the party dear in places like Kolar.’’