Campaigning for Council polls gains momentum

Senior leaders extensively touring constituencies

 
CM Yeddyurappa is campaigning extensively across the State, while the Congress and the JD(S) leaders are working overtime in their bid to defeat their common enemy, the saffron party. The BJP has chalked out a stratergy to win at least 12 seats. So, the CM has already toured Belgaum and Dharwad and will campaign in Mysore and Kodagu on Friday and Raichur and Koppal on Saturday.

Other leaders will launch their campaign trails soon. Party National General Secretary Ananth Kumar will campaign in Bangalore on Saturday, while RDPR Minister Jagadish Shettar will tour Gulbarga and Bidar soon, party sources said.

Presently, the BJP and Congress have 28 seats each in the 75-member Council. Of the remaining seats, 13 are held by JD(S), three independents, one by JD(U), while one seat is vacant. KPCC President R V Deshpande, Opposition leader in the Assembly Siddaramaiah, KPCC Working President D K Shivakumar are touring across all 25 constituencies.

The JD(S) State President H D Kumaraswamy is scheduled to start the campaign on Monday from Bangalore rural. Functionaries of the respective parties are arranging meetings with the electoral college for the polls that comprise members of both rural and urban local bodies with these leaders, sources said. Leaders said both the parties are campaigning for each other as per the pre-poll alliance agreement. But in Chitradurga and Bangalore rural, where both have fielded candidates, they are out to defeat each other.

The BJP sees the polls as an opportunity to wean away a few seats from the Congress and gain an upper hand. Winning at least 12 seats would mean that the BJP would be in a position even to have its own candidates as Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the House.

Senior party functionaries admit that electoral alliance between JD(S) and Congress would pose a tough challenge to the BJP especially in constituencies in South Karnataka.
 However, the withdrawal by rebels in Shimoga, Chitradurga, Kodagu and Hassan has come as a relief for the ruling party.