The ruling Congress party is likely find the going tough in the forthcoming Najangud bypoll, for which the calender of events is yet to be announced by the Election Commission. Former minister, V. Srinivas Prasad who represented the constituency in the Assembly, quit his membership and joined the BJP on Monday.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Congress leaders have been making statements attacking Mr Prasad and quietly making efforts to win over voters before the announcement of poll dates. Contrary to Congress leaders’ posturing in public, the party seems very worried about the bypoll results. They know it cannot be written off as one more bypoll and may be an indicator of what may happen in the 2018 Assembly polls.
A leader confided that the ruling party was under the wrong impression that it can win the election making use of government machinery. “The government thinks of development only during election time. The same applies to Nanjangud. The Chief Minister himself claimed that he did not know this constituency had so many problems and targeted Mr Prasad for not doing any work in the last ten years. Frankly speaking, our party is not ready to face the bypoll. It may not be surprising if we get a result no different from Hebbal which we lost”.
If a sizeable population of Dalits-Mr Srinivas Prasad’s community- and Lingayats-BJP chief Yeddyurappa’s community- come together to support Mr Prasad, the ruling party may well find it impossible to defeat the veteran leader.
A couple of senior ministers to whom this reporter spoke, opined that it would be an uphill task for the Congress to win the election because of slack development, corruption and lack of understanding among ministers.
