Cong huddles with bypoll observers

AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal on Saturday held a meeting with the party’s observers to review the strategy for the December 5 bypolls.

The Congress high command has deployed nine of its senior leaders as “observers” for the 15 assembly constituencies. They include former MPs M M Pallam Raju, Ponnam Prabhakar, Viswanathan, N Tulasi Reddy and J D Saleem.

The party has roped in its Tamil Nadu working president Mayura Jayakumar for Shivajinagar and KR Puram. “The Tamil population is high in Shivajinagar and even in KR Puram, where there are people from Kerala as well,” KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao said at the meeting.

'BJP will pay heavy price'

Venugopal said the BJP will “face the consequences and pay a heavy price” for the way in which it formed the government in Maharashtra.

“At any cost, this government will not exist beyond 3-5 days,” Venugopal told reporters.

“We will raise this in Parliament also, because this is the murder of democracy.” On the bypolls, Venugopal said the Congress will win all 15 seats.

“The same thing happened here earlier. Only horse-trading happened and they came to power through the backdoor. Now, they're trying to win with money and muscle power. But we will win all the seats,” he said.