With eye on Karnataka elections, Congress to assess performance of MLAs

The party desperate to retain power in the state will also prepare dossiers on opposition MLAs to assess the winability of prospective party nominees.

Desperate to retain Karnataka, the only big state left with it, the Congress has started evaluating the performance of the party’s 128 lawmakers to prepare for the assembly polls next year.

All 225 assembly constituencies in Karnataka will go to polls in March-April 2018.

Party observers have been deputed to give feedback on the functioning of sitting Congress legislators and also prepare dossiers on the performance of opposition members of legislative assembly, including 40 each of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal-Secular. This exercise will help party managers know the strength or weakness of the opposition leaders while assessing the winability of the prospective party nominees for the next assembly polls.

The Congress, which wrested back Karnataka from the BJP in the 2013 assembly polls largely on corruption charges against former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa and his successor D Sadananda Gowda, faces an aggressive saffron party ahead of the 2018 battle. The Congress is banking on the work done by K Siddaramaiah’s government over the past four years. But sources say effectively countering the BJP’s propaganda against him is the biggest challenge before the state unit.

“This will require a massive campaign to reach out to the voters. We have to explain to them the promises that we have fulfilled,” says a senior Karnataka Congress leader.

In Congress’s assessment, Siddaramaiah has done reasonably well in rural areas. But a lot of corrective actions are needed to fight negative perception among the rural voters.

Scandals involving an expensive watch as gift, sex tapes, an irrigation scam, the sacking of 14 ministers and the molestation of women by New Year revellers in Bengaluru have shown the administration and the chief minister in poor light.

Senior leader S M Krishna joining the BJP was another setback for the Congress as the Vokkaliga leader served the grand old party for around 55 years. Krishna had a sizeable fan following among the urban voters, especially in Bengaluru. “We gave him everything from zilla parishad to external affairs ministry and the post of governor,” says a miffed AICC functionary, on Krishna’s exit.

Incidentally, Yeddyurappa was responsible for roping in Krishna after approval from BJP chief Amit Shah.