BENGALURU: Getting traditional Congress voters back into the party fold will be the biggest challenge before DK Shivakumar, who is taking charge as the Congress’s State unit president on Thursday, nearly three months after his appointment.The Covid-19-induced lockdown and restrictions on political gatherings had forced the Congress to postpone the ceremony several times, but Shivakumar had started his work by striking the right notes with the party workers and by showing signs of collective leadership and eagerness to take on the ruling establishment. Both these traits were missing in the Grand Old Party that seems to have lost the art of winning elections.
The Vokkaliga strongman has a Herculean task ahead of him, especially making Congress a mass-based party to cadre-based one, which tops his list of priorities as the head of the State unit. He has been put in the hot seat when the morale of the cadre is low, especially after the party’s back-to-back drubbing at the hustings and BJP emerging as a formidable force in the State making inroads into all regions, including Old Mysore that had until recently remained the bastion of the Congress and the JDS.
By putting Shivakumar in the driver’s seat, the Congress is trying to woo the dominant Vokkaliga community that had drifted away from it over the years. Nearly two decades after S M Krishna led the party to victory in 1999, Shivakumar is the first leader from the community to lead the Congress in the State.Incidentally, Shivakumar rose to prominence in the State politics as a minister in Krishna government, though he had worked in the S Bangarappa cabinet prior to that.
According to party insiders, Shivakumar, who is known for his dashing style of politics and resilience, is well aware of the challenges, especially the need to take party leaders from all regions and communities along and re-energize the cadre.“Bringing back traditional Congress supporters, who did not support the party in the last elections and increasing the party’s vote share by another 3 to 4 per cent are major challenges as we have to get around 40 per cent vote share to come to power. We now have around 36 per cent,” senior Congress leader B L Shankar told TNIE on Wednesday. The party, he says, needs to bring back a section of Scheduled Caste, section of backward classes, a section of Lingayat and Vokkaligas, who were traditionally voting for Congress, but have drifted away.
The new leadership needs to convince people that the Congress is the natural alternative to the BJP, and ensure that traditional non-Congress voters, who were supporting the JDS, do not go to BJP. “It is a doable task as the Congress had never come below 35 per cent vote share except in 1994. The party has strong voter base in the State and adding another 3 or 4 per cent to the kitty will bring us back to power,” says Shankar.
However, winning back Lingayat voters in North Karnataka, who are strongly backing B S Yediyurappa, and Vokkaliga voters in South Karnataka who consider H D Deve Gowda as the tallest leader in the community, is a challenge for Shivakumar. Politics in Old Mysore region will be more interesting to watch out for as Shivakumar comes from the same region. Establishing Congress in the Vokkaliga heartland will be crucial to establish his leadership within the party and the State. BJP too is doing everything it can to gain a strong foothold in the region, and it has managed to win assembly seats in Hassan and Mandya.