From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Jun 27: Now, the Congress party has come out with its own diagnosis for the ‘poor show’ in the Lok Sabha polls and has identified five reasons, the first of which being the alliance with JD(S).

Yes, AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal, who is the party in-charge for Karnataka, has come out with these facts at a day-long introspection session at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) office in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, who is heads the coordination committee of the Congress-JD(S) alliance in the State, as well as KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao and other party leaders were present in the introspection session held at the Congress Bhavan under Venugopal’s chairmanship.

File photo

In the meeting, Venugopal sought details from each parliamentary constituency and listed five major reasons for the party’s drubbing in the elections.

Reasons for Congress party’s defeat are:

* Internal differences within the Congress,
* Failure of the party MLAs to secure lead to the party candidates in constituency they represented,
* Negative image of the coalition government headed by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, alliance with the JD (S), and
* Inability of the State leadership to effectively counter the ‘Modi wave’ during the campaign.

The leaders argued that the negative image of the party had caused defeat of the Congress in at least 4-5 constituencies in the State.

The party leaders felt that “back stabbing by the JD(S) leaders” in some of the constituencies was a major factor for the party’s defeat.

The Congress leaders felt the party would have fared much better in the State if it had faced the elections separately. They also contended that the JD(S) did not transfer its votes to Congress candidates and additionally resulted in erosion of its support base.

The defeated party candidates in the general elections attended the meeting.