Congress’ candidates for about 60 seats in Karnataka unsuitable, party will lose badly: Bommai

PTI, Apr 7, 2023, 3:02 PM IST

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday commented that the Congress didn’t have suitable candidates in about 60 seats and the party would lose badly in the May 10 Assembly polls, performing worse than last time.

He said the Congress lacked not only candidates, but a base in the State as well as clarity on its policies.

”As per my understanding, Congress doesn’t have suitable candidates in about 60 seats, so they are trying to get people from here and there,” Bommai said in response to a question. ”As I had said earlier, D K Shivakumar while preparing Congress’ second list contacted almost all our MLAs saying, ‘seats have been reserved for you, will you join?”’.

Speaking to reporters here, he said that the Congress and Shivakumar speak with valour, but the reality inside was different.

”They (Congress) will lose badly than last time, there is no doubt on that, because they neither have candidates, nor base nor clarity on policies — whether it is on reservation or on development. They feel that by speaking with carelessness they can win the election. It is not possible,” he added.

Bommai had recently accused Shivakumar of making phone calls to BJP MLAs and offering them tickets in constituencies where the Congress was yet to announce candidates.

The KPCC chief on his part had hit back at this, pointing at saffron party leaders’ ”knocking at the doors” of Congress MLAs and ensuring that they jumped ship to the BJP to bring the party to power in 2019.

Congress has announced candidates for 166 of the total 224 seats, and is yet to finalise the list for the remaining 58 seats.

Responding to a question regarding Shivakumar’s statement that the Congress, on coming to power, would cancel the reservation-related decisions of the BJP government, the CM said, ”Let him do, let’s see…it is not possible.”