Bengaluru: With the battle lost and the Opposition upping the ante against it, the ruling Congress is likely to restrict its introspection meeting on the three Assembly bypolls to blaming a few leaders rather than identifying the actual reasons for the debacle and trying to find solutions.
Leaders, who have attended such meetings in the past, do not think the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) will come out with new ideas to win back the confidence of voters.
Instead of fixing responsibility, the leaders will resort to a blame game, which will die out sooner than later.
Ultimately, such meetings end in a one or two-line resolution on the determination to work as a team in coming elections. A secret report is then sent to the high command blaming a few leaders for the loss,” a leader privy to such deliberations and involved in preparing reports, told Deccan Chronicle.
Usually, no one knows the contents of the report sent to All-India Congress Committee President Sonia Gandhi with copies to the general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, except the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee.
No efforts had been made in the past to do a genuine postmortem or pull up those responsible, due to pressure from various quarters.
Useful suggestions given by senior leaders remain on paper. So, many leaders have stopped giving recommendations and attend such meetings for names sake, a leader confided.
Can't blame high command: In the case of Hebbal, the leader said the PCC cannot blame the high command which changed the candidate at the eleventh hour due to pressure from some senior leaders.
The Delhi leaders said 'no' to Mr Byrathi Suresh, the candidate proposed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who was well aware of the ground reality.
The Karnataka unit is unlikely to aggrandize the top brass by putting put the blame on Delhi leaders for giving the ticket to Mr Rehaman Sharief instead of Byrathi Suresh, which was one of the main reasons for the defeat. A similar situation prevailed at meetings held before the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) polls when tickets were given to unknown faces rather than going by the list of candidates suggested by the 13 Congress legislators of Bengaluru City.
Ultimately, the party suffered a humiliating defeat and was forced to forge an alliance with Janata Dal (Secular) to rule the civic body.
“Suggestions given by local leaders should be taken seriously if the party wants to do well in the coming elections,” the leader added.
