JD (S) votes went to BJP, says Congress report on Lok Sabha poll debacle

A Congress fact-finding committee that looked into the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka has blamed the lack of vote transfer from the Janata Dal (Secular) for its dismal performance.

The committee was formed in the aftermath of an abject performance by the Congress-JD(S) coalition, which together managed to win just two seats out of 28 in the state.

The report, submitted to Congress state president Dinesh Gundu Rao, parts of which were released to the press, says together the Congress and JD(S) received around 57% of the total vote share in the Karnataka assembly elections in 2018. However, the combined total of the two parties in the Lok Sabha polls was just around 41%.

The report says that the Congress and its allies were able to thwart the BJP in all the other southern Indian states, except Karnataka. Here “Congress and JD(S) leaders and workers have said the two parties did not fight together to stop the BJP”.

It adds that the coalition worked in six seats out of 28 – Shivamogga, Hassan (which the JD-S won), three seats in Bengaluru urban, and the Bengaluru Rural seat (which was won by the Congress).

The report adds that since the Congress and various iterations of the Janata Parivar have battled each other since 1977, people in the state did not buy into the coalition. It said the overwhelming opinion of the party workers was that the Congress should not ally with the JD(S) henceforth at any level.

Additionally, the committee said, constant bickering that was a persistent feature of the former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government was not accepted by the people of the state.

Talking about the party organisation, the report suggests that there are districts that have become the “republics of some leaders” and that this is affecting the party. One member of the six-member committee, told HT on the condition of anonymity that there were districts like Davanagere that Lingayat leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa like their fiefs.

“There is also the example of Mysuru, which former chief minister Siddaramaiah considers to be his domain,” the committee member said. “We felt that the Mysuru seat could have either been given to the JD(S) or that we could have fielded a Vokkaliga candidate, instead of the candidate who was backed by Siddaramaiah.”

The report also says that it was the opinion of party workers that it should stop the practice of giving tickets to people from the same family. The committee member quoted above said, “Mallikarjun Kharge and his son Priyank are both active politicians. So is Siddaramaiah, whose son is also an MLA. There are many like them, including Shivashankarappa,” he said.

The committee was headed by former state minister Basavaraj Rayareddy and also included former MP R Dhruvanarayan, who lost by a thin margin of 1,817 votes in the Chamarajanagar seat to the BJP’s V Srinivasa Prasad.

The parts of the report that dealt with each constituency were not released. However, a fight has been raging in Kolar district, where seven-time former MP KH Muniyappa blamed Congress and JD(S) MLAs, including former Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, of working with the BJP to ensure his defeat.

Muniyappa had written to party president Sonia Gandhi, former president Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, Siddaramaiah and Gundu Rao, asking them to suspend the Congress MLAs in the district. He even had a heated argument with Siddaramaiah on this issue recently.

The committee member quoted above said that it found that both sides were to blame in Kolar. “The MLAs had alleged that Muniyappa helped the BJP in the assembly elections last year, and Muniyappa alleged that they worked against him in the Lok Sabha polls. There was mutual animosity in the constituency,” he said.

Congress state president Gundu Rao he had received the report and would go through it now. “We will have a detailed look at the report and then hold discussions on it and take decisions based on that,” he said.

However, the leaked parts of the report did not go down well with the JD(S). “Isn’t it a fact that the Congress-JD(S) coalition lost the 2019 Parliamentary elections in Karnataka due to the ego clashes and backstabbing of party leaders?” said Ramesh Babu, national general secretary of the JD(S).

In the days after the poll debacle the JD(S) has also alleged that Congress leaders conspired with the BJP in ensuring the defeats of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Nikhil Kumaraswamy in the Tumkur and Mandya seats, respectively.

“Congress-JD(S) coalition came about… to keep communal forces away. However, petty ego issues have burnt such an altruistic ideology leading to a tragic defeat of the coalition,” Babu added.