Rahul Gandhi to Siddaramaiah: How will you get urban votes?

Bengaluru: Congress president Rahul Gandhi quizzed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah about the latter’s strategy to secure the support of urban voters in forthcoming elections to the Legislative Assembly during a courtesy call on New Year’s Eve. 

A casual conversation turned into a discussion between the two leaders as Mr Gandhi, keen to ensure that his party retains its hold over Karnataka, seemed anxious about the state unit’s plans to woo urban voters who constitute the traditional vote base of the BJP. He praised Mr Siddaramaiah for embarking on “Sadhana Yatra” and listened patiently as the Chief Minister explained that benefits of most schemes have reached the urban poor. Besides, the government’s initiative to improve the infrastructure and launch schemes such as white-topping of roads would also will help attract the urban youth and professionals in Bengaluru, the Chief Minister was quoted as informing Mr Gandhi. 

According to a senior leader, the Chief Minister explained that the urban poor had benefited to a large extent by many schemes. “Be it the Indira canteens or distribution of rice under Anna Bhagya scheme, each is actually aimed at catering to this segment.Hence, the party is upbeat about its performance in urban areas too, " the leader explained.

The leader said in the aftermath of the party’s performance in Gujarat, where the BJP swept urban pockets in an unprecedented manner, the party's think tank reportedly arrived at a conclusion that the party must focus on the urban poor rather than on the entire urban voter segment. "In any city, the urban poor constitute the major segment on whom the party must turn its attention and the party has been working on this strategy in Delhi. However, Karnataka has never lagged behind in attracting urban poor voters traditionally. The same is continued even by Mr Siddaramaiah by announcing pro-poor schemes in his last four budgets,” the leader added. 

Shah came to stop internal feud: Dr G Parameshwar
KPCC president Dr. G. Parameshwar on Monday described BJP president Amit Shah's visit to the city on Sunday as an attempt to stop internal fighting in the state unit. "Naturally during the visit, he has spoken about elections. His visit will have no impact on us,” he added. 

He asserted that some BJP legislators and leaders have evinced interest in joining the party ahead of the Assembly elections. "Some BJP legislators and leaders have expressed interest in joining our party, and are in touch with us. But it is difficult to accept everyone as we will have our candidates in those constituencies," he said adding “We will have to think before inducting them.”