Date:12/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/12/stories/2007101254840700.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Revamp time for the Congress

T.S. Ranganna

Bangalore: Now that the Janata Dal (Secular)-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition is out of power and elections to the State Assembly are round the corner, the demand for revamping the top leadership in the State unit of the Congress in both the party and legislature has resurfaced.

The demand for replacing the old guard, mostly from north Karnataka region and Dalits and Backward Classes, by more dynamic and resourceful leaders from the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities in the southern and central parts of the State subsided a few months ago. A series of delegations of leaders from different wings of the State unit had met several central leaders for effecting a change, but it was turned down, then.

Reiterating their charge that Vokkaligas and Lingayats have been completely ignored, one party leader, who met the in-charge secretary of Karnataka Prithviraj Chavan, told him that the party could not improve its number in the Assembly with the present set-up in office.

Mr. Chavan, it is stated, noted down when the leader suggested shifting the Maharashtra Governor S.M. Krishna to head the campaign.

A few others such as the former MLC B.A. Hasanabba, who expressed a similar view, told Mr. Chavan that there was no future for the Congress, if the present set-up continued. A large number of leaders, particularly the young ones, supported this line of argument.

According to sources, the party lost more than 100 seats in the central and southern parts of the State, which had large population of Vokkaligas and Lingayats who did not support the party in the elections in 2004. But, the sources close to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President M. Mallikarjun Kharge denied it.

The sources argued that the debacle was because of over-representation to Vokkaligas in the Government. It was under this leadership that more than 30 Ministers were defeated in the Assembly elections.

Rather, the party had recovered in the last three years. They maintained that the Congress improved its position in the zilla panchayat elections and got its nominee elected to the fourth party seat in the Legislative Council elections.

It wrested a seat from the Janata Dal (S) in the Chamundeswari constituency, while retaining the Ullal seat. Recently, the party retained its first position in the urban local bodies elections.