Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has appealed to the Congress workers to maintain a united front and ensure the party’s victory in the forthcoming elections to the taluk and zilla panchayats in the State. Speaking at the Mysuru divisional-level gram swaraj convention held here on Saturday, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that there was a problem of plenty for the Congress with too many aspirants for every seat.
“But the party can allocate ticket only to one candidate (in each seat). The other aspirants should respect the decision and support the official candidate,” he said.
However, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the presence of too many aspirants was an indicator of the people’s faith in the party to empower the socially backward and economically impoverished sections of the society. “In contrast, the BJP and the JD (S) are facing problems selecting candidates and it underlines people’s lack of faith in the two parties,” he said.
Expressing confidence of a thumping victory in the local body elections, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the Congress would win at least 20 of the 30 ZPs and more than 170 TPs. He said that the Congress believed in decentralisation of power and this was imperative if new leadership was to emerge at the grassroots. “It was the Congress which introduced the 73{+r}{+d}amendment to the Constitution to pave way for the decentralisation of power to the panchyats and not the BJP … the BJP has no track record in strengthening the local bodies,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
“While the Congress believes in decentralisation, the BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, believes in concentration of power … this has been vouched by senior BJP leader L.K. Advani himself,” he added. The Chief Minister came down heavily on the State BJP leaders and said the party had nothing to show to the people ahead of the elections. “The BJP did not initiate welfare programmes during its five-year stint in the State. Instead, we had the spectacle of a Chief Minister and many cabinet ministers landing in jail … a few MLAs were caught watching pornographic films inside the Assembly … and one BJP leader was accused of molestation,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said. He said that the Congress, which had tabled two budgets in the State, would table three more budgets and would return to power in the next Assembly elections as well.
