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    Congressmen talk of Rahul Gandhi & Siddaramaiah’s ‘tactless’ campaign

    Synopsis

    There is a feeling that Gandhi’s dubbing of JDS as a ‘BJP’s B team’ during the campaign has made it difficult for him to explain Congress making JDS it’s ‘A team’ in the jointbid against BJP.

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    At an early evaluation of the Karnataka polls, many leaders wondered whether Gandhi had overlooked the traditional political approach of the Congress and allowed Siddharamaiah’s to dominate the campaign.
    NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s silence at a time his party and JDS are locked in a raging battle against the BJP over formation of government in Karnataka has become a talking point. From the time the results were out, till the governor invited BJP leader Yeddyurappa to form the government, Gandhi, who led the Congress campaign has remained indoors, offering no comments to the media or on Twitter on the power-game in Bengaluru.

    There is a feeling that Gandhi’s dubbing of JDS as a ‘BJP’s B team’ during the campaign has made it difficult for him to explain Congress making JDS it’s ‘A team’ in the jointbid against BJP.

    After Gandhi — who chose Siddharamaiah over traditional state Congress leaders to make him the first ‘outsider’ Congress CM in 2013 — led the Congress election blitzkrieg with the CM, notably it is ‘Team Sonia’ that has sprung into action post the hung verdict. While Sonia Gandhi reached out to Deve Gowda, senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ashok Gehlot led the fire-fighting.

    While many Congress leaders admitted that attacking JDS in areas where the Congress was fighting it directly was unavoidable, Gandhi could have shown tactical restraint and left it to junior colleagues to attack the JDS, thereby reserving a political buffer for him as the party supremo to deal with the post-poll alliance-making. That was the tact and style party strategists prepared for Sonia Gandhi, reserving her most aggressive attacks only for BJP. The Rahul-Mamata uneasy also is seen as his inability, unlike Sonia, to indulge in maintain a personal rapport with Opposition leaders who, though his competitors, were potential allies.

    At an early evaluation of the Karnataka polls, many leaders wondered whether Gandhi had overlooked the traditional political approach of the Congress in Karnataka and all owed Siddharamaiah’s ‘Janata DNA’ to dominate the party campaign. Given his lingering animosity to the Deve Gowda family, Siddharamaiah’s instincts was to understandably go the whole hog against the JDS, resulting in Congress suffering badly in the Vokkaliga belt where the party had pockets of influence despite JDS supremacy.

    While Congress has been for years working to woo back sections of Lingayats — a community that had deserted Congress for BJP since Rajiv Gandhi unceremoniously sacked Veerendra Patil as chief minister — many feel Siddharamaiah’s desperate ploy to ‘trick’ the community with his ‘minority’ card only made Lingayats more hostile. While Congress traditionally drew strength by aggregating its influence across caste-religion lines, many feel, AHINDA (Muslim-OBCDalit) plank of Siddharamaiah, originating from the JD-style ‘exclusive’ politics, conflicted with ‘inclusive’ Congress plank.

    Many Congress leaders are in synch with senior Congress leaders Veerappa Moily’s post-poll remark.

    “The result is quite disappointing. Had it been on a development ground or a social justice ground, the Congress would have won. I think, somewhere there was something wrong with caste management in Karnataka. That plays an important role,” Moily had told news channels.


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