“Warning bell for us,” says Karnataka Cong chief on LS poll outcome

Terming the Lok Sabha election outcome in Karnataka as a “warning bell” to the Congress, its state unit chief D K Shivakumar on Monday indicated that the ruling outfit in the State is currently on a fact-finding mission to find out the reasons for the below par performance.
Also the Deputy Chief Minister, he stressed on the need to look at what went wrong and rectify them, as he called upon party men not to speak before the media regarding the party’s performance and blaming someone for it.
The NDA got 19 out of 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, with BJP winning 17 and JD(S) two. The ruling Congress, which banked heavily on the guarantee schemes that its Government had launched and expected them to yield rich electoral dividends, has won nine seats.
“When General Secretary (AICC) and Rahul Gandhi came to Bengaluru, they told us. We are calling meetings and discussing. Today we have called a meeting to discuss Bengaluru city. For other places too we will fix dates. We need to examine things and review where we have gone wrong, what has happened,” Shivakumar told reporters here.
He added: “I have asked party men not to speak to the media. Let us do the fact finding on what has happened where, and find solutions.”
“People have given us a warning bell. We need to be careful in the future. At least now we have to realise what has gone wrong, where and we should rectify it,” Shivakumar said.
Claiming that the party was confident about winning 14-15 seats, Shivakumar said, “we have failed in it. People have given their verdict.”
The party has not got votes on the home turf of several of its leaders, he said. “We are verifying why it happened. There may be several individual causes, but defeat is a defeat. We have to accept that votes for us have gone down. People have given verdict, we can’t give lame excuses. We have to set it right.”
Shivakumar said no one has complained to him blaming other party leaders for the lower-than-expected performance.
“There is no use in it. Those who had taken responsibility for their respective area must answer for the performance there. They should speak to workers as to what went wrong and what is the solution,” he added.
To a question on an MLA reportedly demanding that the party seek resignation of Ministers who failed to get lead for the party in their respective Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha polls, Shivakumar said: “it will be good if MLAs keep quiet.”