With Assembly elections less than a year away, the main political parties seem to have started constituency-wise data crunching and preparations for setting up ‘war rooms’ to decide their campaign strategy and social-media initiatives.
Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party State in-charge leaders in New Delhi are learnt to be in the process of relocating to Bengaluru.
Following the decision to retain G. Parameshwara as president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee and appointment of other office-bearers, four AICC secretaries in charge of the State have been told set up houses here, according to sources.
They added that the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, K.C. Venugopal, too is expected to move in after some time, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is learnt to have begun receiving constituency-wise data analysis reports to determine the most “winnable” candidates.
With BJP’s chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa already on a Statewide tour, the party’s general secretary in charge of Karnataka, P. Murlidhar Rao, is about to shift to Bengaluru. Party sources said he is already searching for a house near the BJP State headquarters at Malleswaram.
Party insiders said one of the main objectives of Mr. Yeddyurappa’s tour was to assess the BJP’s preparedness in different constituencies and get a pulse on grass-roots issues and potential candidates. This, they said, was precisely why he started off so early.
The Janata Dal (S) is in the process of setting up a ‘war room’ in Bengaluru’s posh Sadashivanagar area as it goes on with its mass contact programme titled ‘Mane Manege Kumaranna’ (party State president H.D. Kumaraswamy at your doorstep).
While Mr. Kumaraswamy is continuously touring the areas where the party was hitherto not strong, such as the northern districts, JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda continues to be at the centre of the party’s strategy-making process.
Image makeover
The JD(S), which is primarily dependent on its rural support base, is this time trying for an image makeover as part of its efforts to woo urban voters. The party has taken the social media route in a big way to support its image-makeover initiative.
Over 50 IT professionals, who are managing social media from different locations of the State, are set to move into the ‘war room’, according to JD(S) IT wing chief Madhu Kumar. They include 10 software professionals who have quit their high-paying jobs to work round the clock, he said.
