DCM Calls Upon Party Men to Work Unitedly for the General Elections

Bengaluru: Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar today said that the Congress party and the country were looking up to Karnataka in the upcoming general election and called upon the party workers to live up to those expectations.

Speaking to reporters after a party meeting at Indira Bhavan on Wednesday, he said, “Party workers will have to keep the party interest above their interest. We have given the confidence to our party workers to go to the people by rolling out all the five guarantees as we promised. No other government has fulfilled so many promises in seven months. The fifth guarantee is being rolled out on Swamy Vivekananda Jayanthi on January 12.”

“We have established transparency by ensuring that the benefits of the guarantee schemes reach beneficiaries directly without any interference of intermediaries. About 80% of the families and 3 crore people are benefited from the guarantee schemes.”

“The AICC President has suggested Jan 21 as the date for a convention of party workers. MLAs, district and block level Congress leaders, representatives of Cooperative societies, office bearers, winning and losing candidates in gram panchayats, booth level workers will all be part of this convention. We will let you know the details in a couple of days,” he said.

“We have given certain instructions to the Chief minister, MLAs and Ministers in today’s meeting. We have to complete the process of nominations to all the committees including Ashraya committee, Aradhana committee, Energy department sub-committee, tank committee of Irrigation departments, KDP, etc. It is important that we have to complete this process so that it energises the cadre,” he added.

“We have given the responsibility of each district to one minster for the upcoming general elections. We have deputed MLCs, General Secretaries and Vice presidents under them. We will also be delegating block level responsibilities. We have asked for organisation and reorganisation of the party at the assembly constituency level and block level,” he noted.

“It has been decided to conduct a convention of all the beneficiaries of guarantee schemes. The assembly session is likely to start from February 12 and hence these conventions will need to be completed before that. District ministers need to take up this responsibility,” he said.

“We are drawing up an initiative called ‘Mane Manege Congress’ (Congress at every doorstep) and we will give you more information about that in a few days. The first list of appointments to Boards and Corporations will be announced shortly. We have limited the tenure of these roles to two years in view of giving opportunities to more and more people,” he noted.

“The AICC leaders have given us an agenda for the general election preparations. The AICC has called for a meeting of the ministers of four states tomorrow. They will give us instructions on the modalities of working for the upcoming elections. We don’t have much time and we have to start work on the constituencies. We need to demonstrate the same commitment that we gave during the previous elections. Everyone has to keep Party interest above his or her individual interest,” he said.

“The reports that we have got about potential candidates is not satisfactory. The AICC, Chief minister and myself are conducting a survey regarding selection of candidates for the general elections,” he said. The government has also decided to issue identity cards to beneficiaries of guarantee schemes, he said, adding that the cards will be issued by the party workers.

“We have come to certain decisions based on our meeting with the AICC leaders over the last one week. It is important to communicate the benefits of guarantee schemes to people,” he added.