Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Wednesday said the party was bound to takeover the reigns of Mangaluru City Corporation council for the sixth time on the basis of the development works it had taken up all these days.
He was speaking after releasing the party manifesto for the November 12 elections to the corporation council, along with Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah here. “We lost the Assembly polls in Mangaluru not because our MLAs did not work; but because of the other kind of campaign [by the BJP]. The MLAs were not defeated because they didn’t work,” he said.
Hinting that the corporation council election campaigns were not like the ones carried out for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Rao said development works executed by the Congress, both through the city corporation and through its government during Mr. Siddaramaiah’s tenure, would bring the party back to power.
Giving out statistics, the KPCC president said the Siddaramaiah government had released ₹1,400 crore to the city corporation during the five-year tenure under various schemes. Also, Mangaluru City South and Mangaluru City North Assembly constituencies had been given ₹2,500 crore and ₹1,460 crore, respectively, for various development works during the period. No other government had released such a huge amount of money for the development of Mangaluru, Mr. Rao claimed.
Special status
Mangaluru, he said, had a special status among various other cities of the State for its multifaceted character. Being a hub of various religions, the city is also a centre of trade, commerce, education, healthcare, and tourism. Obviously, the Congress had given special attention to the development of Mangaluru, he said.
The former Minister and MLA U.T. Khader, MLC Ivan D’Souza, the former Ministers B. Ramanath Rai, Vinay Kumar Sorake and K. Abhayachandra Jain, former MLAs J.R. Lobo and Mohiuddin Bava, AICC secretary Vishnu Nadhan, State Mahila Congress president Pushpa Amaranath, DCC president K. Harish Kumar, and others were present.
