Date:31/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/31/stories/2008123159910400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Deshpande plays the blame game

Special Correspondent

He says senior leaders are responsible for Congress defeat

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Quiet witness: The KPCC office in Bangalore wears a deserted look after byelection results were announced on Tuesday.

Bangalore: A pall of gloom fell on Congress office-bearers and workers in the State after its total rout in the byelections to the eight Legislative Assembly constituencies.

No Congress worker could be seen in the office of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, which had been a beehive of activity till recently.

Reflecting on the mood of the party, the KPCC president R.V. Deshpande termed the results as a “defeat of democracy, disrespect to the Constitution, the use of money and liquor and misuse of power by government functionaries”.

Mr. Deshpande said that lack of unity in the party and non-cooperation by senior leaders were partly responsible for the defeat of its candidates. He said that former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramiah, who was the chairman of the campaign committee, former Union Ministers R.L. Jalappa and Ambareesh, did not campaign for the party.

Mr. Siddaramiah, he said, kept waiting for a message from Congress President Sonia Gandhi to begin campaigning, while his associates kept issuing statements in the name of AHINDA, an organisation of minorities, backward classes and Dalits, supporting the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The KPCC president said he had urged the Election Commission to stop the ruling party from influencing voters with money and liquor, but it had not heeded him. At least now the time had come to focus on these issues in the next elections, to save democracy, he said.

Call for unity

Several Congress leaders, who resorted to the blame game for the loss in the elections, however, said that it was time for unity.