Congress on the front foot; Revs up election engine

Bengaluru: Call it symbolic, a fleet of Volvo B11R coaches has revved up their engines in the garden city for the state-wide tour of Congress leaders. But behind the scenes, the party has flexed its muscle to take on the gruelling leg of electioneering in the next three months.

The Prajadhwani tour is just one of the main events, significant at that, as the party will bury all sundry issues and is focussed on the winnability aspect totally. The Congress is now showing its unified face, which no doubt has spooked the BJP. The saffron party had thrived so far on the factionalism in the Congress, but that advantage is lost for the BJP and sooner or later the party's social media set-up will start doing stupid things.

It was quick and astute that Congress got its act together. Devised plans, put in action the machinery to carry it and wedged its cadres and leaders. Many of the contentious assembly segments - according to the party sources the coast, Malnad, old Mysore, and parts of Kalyana Karnataka are proving to be problematic due to Hindutva polarisation and multiple ticket aspirants in the Congress party.

There are assembly segments on the coast that has 12 aspirants for the Congress ticket. This belied the BJP bandwagon's narrative that Congress would not get candidates to contest elections in 2023. However, the multiplicity of candidates in the Hindutva belt for example - Puttur where there are 12 ticket aspirants from the Congress party is an indicator that the Congress leadership has worked behind the scenes and stealthily. The Coast of Karnataka which was labelled as the laboratory of Hindutva politics is showing a turning around towards Congress. However, there are views expressed from the party cadres the 'Prajadwani' should have been launched from the Coastal city of Mangaluru which would have sent a strong message to the voters.