Krishna exhorts Congressmen to work for party’s victory in Karnataka

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna has exhorted Congress workers to work in unison to ensure the party’s victory in the next Assembly elections in the State.

Addressing a gathering of party delegates from across the State here on Tuesday, Mr. Krishna said, “If sudden elections are declared, which is very possible, I want all of you to be prepared. By returning the Congress to power, I want to repay my debt to the people of this State.”

Criticising the BJP, he said that that party government had failed on all fronts. He said that the State government had failed to effectively utilise funds granted by the Union government. The Union government’s initiatives in the areas of midday meals, irrigation and rural development had been squandered, he alleged.

He noted that in the last three months the State government had issued ration cards to only 7,000 people whereas there were at least 31 lakh waiting.

Stating that he had lost count of the number of scams in which senior Ministers were involved, he said that the BJP government had brought a bad name to the State. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president G. Parameshwara said, “Winning the Assembly elections is a matter of survival for the Congress in the State. If we lose out on this opportunity, we will find ourselves facing a situation similar to that in Tamil Nadu.”

He reminded the party workers that the job of forming booth-level committees was not yet over. “There are 46,600 booths in the State. We have finished only 70 per cent of the work,” he said. He said that the absence of strong booth-level committees resulted in the party’s defeat in the last Assembly elections.