Outgoing CM Bommai meets RSS leaders, discusses Karnataka poll debacle

After BJP’s defeat in the Assembly polls, outgoing Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders here and held discussions regarding the poll outcome and organising the party for the future.

This was Bommai’s first visit to the BJP’s ideological parent organisation’s state headquarters ‘Keshava Krupa’ here after the poll results were declared on May 13.

”We have discussed the overall poll results. We have also discussed how to organise the party in the days to come with the guidance (of RSS). Our state President (Nalin Kumar Kateel) and leadership will also hold discussions, and after that we will discuss on how to organise the party in the days to come,” Bommai told reporters as he emerged from the RSS office.

In the May 10 elections to the 224-member Assembly, the Congress scored an emphatic victory with 135 seats, while the ruling BJP and the former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) secured 66 and 19, respectively.

Bommai said on Sunday that the Karnataka BJP has decided to do a detailed analysis of the overall poll results and also constituency-wise statistics, to find out the reasons for the party’s poll debacle. Rejecting the Congress’s claim that it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s defeat, he said multiple factors have contributed to the party’s performance and they will all be analysed; a meeting of all newly-elected members and candidates will be held soon in this regard.