Mangaluru: Congress party put in all its effort to achieve victory in Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency but failed miserably and analysis and introspection regarding the failure have been started within the party as well.
Analysis is being conducted considering the confusion regarding the provision of the party ticket and the delay in the announcement of the candidate as the main reasons for the setback in the election. Only when three days were pending for the submission of the nomination papers, then did the party announce Mithun Rai as its candidate.
Because of this, Mithun Rai did not get enough time to create a strategy for the election. Besides, he only had 25 days for campaigning. In BJP, it was almost decided a year before the election that Nalin would be the candidate and the party workers, organizations and leaders worked in that direction.
On the other hand, no powerful leader from Congress party, be it state or from the national level visit the district for campaigning. Other than DKShi, Dinesh Gundurao, CM, Ibrahim and Dr Jayamala, no other important leader visited the district. Chief Minister Kumaraswamy also participated at a meeting in Sullia only for namesake. The party’s star campaigner Shatrughan Sinha only participated only in one promotion meeting at Mudipu.
Prime Minister Modi campaigned on behalf of BJP and provided immense boost to the party’s prospects. Congress failed to bring an influential leader to the district to counter-effect the Modi wave.
Since the selection of the candidate was considerably delayed, it also prevented Congress from effectively campaigning on the booth level as well. Meanwhile, BJP held three rounds of campaigning in the booth level. In that too, the respective MLAs of the 7 taluks in the district bore the responsibility of campaigning and promotion in their respective constituencies.
Other than all these issues, the disobedient outlook of the senior and important leaders of the party in the district was observed during the campaigning in the constituency. Excluding former MLAs and senior leaders campaigning in their respective constituency limits, all the leaders of the party in the district were never seen together at an election meeting or during the campaigning. There is an analysis that this too could have led to the setback that the Congress has faced.
