Karnataka in the bag, here is how Congress plans to safeguard its MLAs

According to party insiders, a battery of senior leaders has been deployed across the state and will take the newly elected MLAs to the capital Bengaluru as early as possible, reports ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi: An upbeat Congress on Saturday said it was confident of getting a comfortable majority in Karnataka but also rolled out an action plan to secure its MLAs from being poached by the BJP. “We are confident of getting a comfortable majority. This itself would prevent the BJP from trying to poach our MLAs. But we had prepared an alternative plan as well and we have rolled it out across the state,” former chief minister M Veerappa Moily told ETV Bharat.

According to party insiders, a battery of senior leaders has been deployed across the state and will take the newly elected MLAs to the capital Bengaluru as early as possible. “There are some procedural issues in elections and in many cases the newly elected MLAs may go in for some prayers or visit the family before leaving home. So, at the moment we are busy doing that. The counting is still on and we hope the picture will be cleared by 12.30 pm,” senior state leader Prakash Rathod told this channel.

According to party insiders, the Congress was likely to reach 130 seats out of 224 and the plan was to gather all the MLAs in Bengaluru by Saturday evening. For that, choppers, chartered flights and vehicles had been deployed in advance. The plan was chalked out on Friday by party president Mallikarjun Kharge who has been camping in his home state for weeks and discussed the voting day events with senior leaders including state unit chief DK Shiv Kumar and CLP leader K Siddaramaiah.

Once the MLAs reach Bengaluru, a meeting of all the new lawmakers would be held to keep the team united and secure, the insiders said. However, party insiders said another CLP meeting would take place on Sunday in which AICC observers will interact with the MLAs before the new chief minister is decided. The party insiders further said that the BJP would dare not indulge in poaching of MLAs as the saffron party had been given a strong lesson by the voters.

Within the party circles, the probability of Shiv Kumar and Siddaramaiah has been discussed for a long. Both are strong and popular leaders. DK Shiv Kumar is a party veteran who rose through the ranks of the student body NSUI. Siddaramaiah moved to the Congress from the JD-S and was chief minister from 2013-2018. But when he led the 2018 polls the party could win only 80 seats. Then Shiv Kumar was brought in as the new state unit chief and delivered a major win to the party.

“The BJP does not win an election. They just try to steal a government like they did in 2019. But this time they have no chance,” said Rathod. In 2018, the Congress with 80 seats, had offered the chief minister’s chair to JD-S with 37 seats to keep the BJP 104 out of power. Later, the BJP poached several Congress MLAs and defeated the JD-S-Congress government in a floor test in 2019.

AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who campaigned across the southern state, prayed at the well-known Jakhu (Lord Hanuman) temple in Shimla for the well-being of Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.