Cong fights factions before Karnataka elections

FURORE OVER FACTIONS: The Congress is apprehensive and wants the Rahul magic to unite factions.

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New Delhi: For the Congress, Karnataka is a tale of too many cooks spoiling the broth. It seems that everybody who should have been in Bangalore are all in Delhi – S M Krishna, Oscar Fernandes, Margaret Alva, Veerappa Moily, Janardhan Poojary, B K Hariprasad, everybody has a stake.

As the party chose and struck out names in the first list of 89, Krishna was sulking – his many adversaries have deleted the names of his loyalists.

It is not Krishna alone who is fuming, however. With all the Mangalore satraps from Moily to Alva trying to dictate terms, even the former Deve Gowda loyalist and now a bitter critic of the JD(S), Siddharamaiah is upset.

“It’s not that others should not be given (a chance); if there are skilled people and qualified in Karnataka, they should be given priority. They can't be neglected,” explained the Campaign Committee chief.

“(Congress) is the biggest and oldest political party. There are a lot of aspirants for that and it is natural,” AICC General Secretary B K Hariprasad pointed out.

Not that the other parties are without their own share of squabbles, but the Congress factionalism is really taking a toll on its electoral prospects.

The party is apprehensive and wants the Rahul magic to unite factions. Younger leaders like Sachin Pilot and Jitin Prasada would also be despatched to the poll-bound state.

It’s a high prestige election for the Congress which is why the party is deliberating every step it takes. What remains to be seen if this over-caution would lead to miscalculations.