K'taka Cong says campaign to bear fruit in Telangana

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: Heavily involved in neighbouring Telangana’s recently concluded Assembly elections, Karnataka Congress leaders are quietly confident of coming to power in the neighbouring state.

The statements come in the backdrop of exit polls predicting Congress crossing the simple majority mark, which is 60 in the 119 member Assembly.

Some exit polls see the Grand Old Party bagging anywhere between 63 and 73 seats while others forecast a possibly hung assembly with Congress’ tally falling in the 48 to 64 seat range.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is predicted to see his party fall from last Assembly election's 99 to anywhere between 34 to 56 seats.

As many as 10 Karnataka ministers, including CM Siddaramaiah, Deputy CM and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar, Housing and Minority Welfare Minister Zameer Ahmed, Food and Civil Supplies Minister KH Muniyappa, among others campaigned extensively in the neighbouring state.

The guarantees had figured heavily as Congress rolled out six welfare schemes in the Telugu-majority state as opposed to five promised in Karnataka Polling took place in Telangana in a single phase on Thursday and results are due on Sunday.

Shivakumar expressed confidence in the party’s prospects but cautioned that exit polls often got it wrong because they had too small a sample size of voters. He claimed that his own surveys spoke to at least one lakh voters in each Assembly constituency.

“I do not believe in exit polls, personally. You all know what happened to the exit poll projections in Karnataka. Only those who spend time on the ground know the reality. Exit polls are sample based and do not reflect the entire picture of a state,” Shivakumar told mediapersons.

Parameshwara said that the exit polls were proof of the fact that people had regained confidence in Congress and had been coming back to the party fold.

“Once people saw us being successful in Karnataka, they chose to retain said confidence in other states,” he said.

DKS doesn’t rule out resort politics

When asked if Congress MLAs will be housed near Bengaluru in view of hung assembly projections in some states, Shivakumar hinted that the party was taking into consideration all manner of possibilities.

“I am confident that the Congress party will come to power in most of the states including Rajasthan. We have to work as per the party directives if it is needed,” he told mediapersons.