75% of Karnataka’s cabinet deployed for Telangana polls

BENGALURU : With a lack of local big names to mount a challenge against the incumbent BRS party in Telangana, All India Congress Committee (AICC) has deployed nearly 3/4th of its functionaries from Karnataka for its voter outreach ahead of the November 30 assembly elections.

Over the weekend alone, some 8 to 10 Congress ministers, including chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar, have been crisscrossing Telangana, campaigning for Congress.

Ministers like B Nagendra (ST welfare and sports), Zameer Ahmed Khan (housing) and D Sudhakar (higher education), besides others, have been camping in Telangana for past week. On Sunday, Siddaramaiah, along with woman and child welfare minister Laxmi Hebbalkar, took a special flight to join them.

Shivakumar, who is also Karnataka Congress president, has been in Telangana for the past four days, aggressively overseeing Congress’ last-minute campaigning. Transport minister R Ramalinga Reddy, energy minister KJ George, Khan, Hebbalkar and others have been visiting Telangana regularly and have been primarily given the mandate to popularise the success of the five poll guarantees, four of which were implemented in Karnataka.

Their task has been to give voters in Telangana the belief that the schemes will be implemented with the same success in their state if Congress is voted to government. Even on Sunday, Siddaramaiah, during a rally, dismissed accusations by Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao of Karnataka guarantees having failed.

“Congress party has successfully implemented four of the five guarantees, while the fifth will be launched soon,” Siddaramaiah said. “Our guarantees will continue for all of five years in Karnataka. I am certain that even in Telangana, Congress will implement all its six guarantees,” he said.

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