BJP and Congress teams comprising senior party leaders will soon tour different Karnataka districts to assess the political situation and prepare the respective roadmap of each party for the assembly election due in just over a year. BJP has formed three teams led by general secretary in-charge Arun Singh, state unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel and chief minister Basavaraj Bommai to review the political situation to plan the campaign ahead. Meanwhile, former chief minister Siddaramiah, Randeep Surjewala and DK Shivakumar will begin their Karnataka tour for Congress on Tuesday. They plan to visit all areas of the state in the next 25 days. A senior BJP leader said his party teams will reach out to constituency-level functionaries, hold district-level meetings and accumulate feedback of ground workers. While controversial religious issues – including hijab ban in educational institutions, calls by Hindu groups to boycott Muslim vendors and regulating loudspeakers in mosques – have dominated the political discourse for some months now, the BJP leadership has asked the state unit to showcase a welfare and development model of governance for polls. Former CM BS Yeddyurappa has also been included in the team. Senior leaders such as Pralhad Joshi, Jagadish Shettar and KS Eshwarappa will also travel to different districts, according to a party functionary.
Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, who is monitoring Karnataka developments, aided by ‘political strategist’ Sunil Kanugolo, has asked leaders to not indulge in a one-way interaction but ensure feedback of workers for planning elections to every assembly seat. “That is why each leader of our party who is a decision maker is travelling to different divisions himself. We announced it first, after which the BJP followed it with district review plan. With this exercise, we want to make sure our workers are heard out,” a Congress functionary said.The BJP teams will undertake a 10-day tour from Wednesday and prepare the blueprint for initial work that needs to be done and identify seats where the BJP faced a big challenge from Congress or JDS in 2018. Arun Singh’s team has leaders such as Govind Kaljor, R Ashok and CT Ravi while in the one led by Kateel, there are leaders such as Yeddyurappa, Ashwath Narayan and V Somanna. Singh may start the tour by a visit to Belagavi on Wednesday. Bommai will lead the team to Mangalore, Shivamogga and Kalaburgi and Kateel’s team will travel to Dharwad and Bellary.
