Incessant rains and flooding in several parts of Karnataka, coupled with delay in Cabinet expansion and appointments to boards and corporations, have resulted in legislators of the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) not seeming too enthusiastic in campaigning for the upcoming urban local body (ULB) elections.
Elections to ULBs across the State will be held on August 31.
Sources in the Congress said many senior legislators have not been showing much interest in the ULB elections owing to the indefinite postponement of expansion of the Cabinet headed by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy. Congress president Rahul Gandhi too has not shown much interest in holding talks with State leaders on the matter.
Senior leaders such as M.B. Patil, H.K. Patil, Tanveer Sait, Roshan Baig, Rahim Khan, B. Nagendra, Pratapgouda Patil, G.S. Shivalli, R.B. Thimmapura, Mahantesh, Bheema Naik, and Satish Jarkiholi are all aspiring to become Ministers in the coalition government.
Congress legislators aspiring to become Ministers had visited New Delhi a couple of times and met top leaders, clarifying the necessity to expand the Cabinet before the ULB polls. However, citing various reasons, including the “inauspicious” month of Ashada, the exercise was put off. This has affected the interest to campaign among the top leaders. Only Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee working president Eshwar Khandre announced his poll tour of 13 districts, from August 24 to 29.
Sources said campaigning would pick up in the last week of August. All these days, rains have lashed several districts and caused inconvenience to people, a Congress MLA said.
JD(S) workers too are downcast. For them, the only bright point is there has been no change in the party heads of districts as of now, the prospect of which had made many apprehensive.
Meanwhile, Election Commissioner P.N. Srinivasachari expressed hope that the rains would recede in the next two weeks. He is confident polling will be peaceful come August 31.
Meanwhile, with Saturday being the last date for filing nominations, candidates from all three parties submitted their papers. Scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on Monday. August 23 is the last date to withdraw from the race.
Polls to 3 TPs put off
The Karnataka State Election Commission (KSEC) has put off until further notice elections to the town panchayats of Kushalnagar, Somwarpet and Virajpet in Kodagu district. They were scheduled to be held on August 31.
This was following a request from the Deputy Commissioner of Kodagu. given the incessant rains In a release, KSEC under-secretary Archana M.S. said the process related to polls that was under way from August 2 to 16 would not affected by the rescheduling of polls.
The KSEC had notified the calender of events for the polls to be held in 105 ULBS on August 29. It was postponed to August 31 following the death of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee earlier this week.
