'Siddaramaiah contesting from 2 seats should concern Cong chief, not Modi'

G Parameshwara, a Dalit leader and the Congress' Karnataka unit chief for 8 years, says it is for the Congress legislature party to decide who will be the next chief minister of the state

A Dalit leader and the Congress party’s Karnataka unit chief for eight years now, G Parameshwara has never hidden his chief ministerial ambitions. He was a CM aspirant in 2013, too, but failed to win his Assembly seat of Koratagere.

A state-level sprinter with a doctorate in agriculture from University of Adelaide, Australia, Parameshwara, 66, was the home minister of Karnataka from 2015 to 2017. And this time, he could emerge as a key contender for the top elected post in the state if the Congress fails to win a simple majority but comes to power by forming a coalition.

It will, however, be the Congress Legislative Party’s call to decide who will be the next chief minister of Karnataka, Parameshwara tells Bibhu Ranjan Mishra and Archis Mohan in an interview. Edited excerpts:

What is your assessment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaigning in Karnataka?

The prime minister has not come here with any positive agenda for Karnataka. He has said little about what his government has done for the state in the four years at the Centre. Has there been any special package (announced for the state)? Is there any irrigation project, or any other big project, or national-level project? He has not mentioned anything.

Moreover, the PM has not proposed any new projects, either. He barely has a year left in office. What can he do? Of the precious little he can do, he has said he will see that five river projects will be taken up. Please tell us which river projects he is talking about. The existing river water-sharing projects are in a shambles. We have the Mahadayi river issue. It is not resolved. We have Cauvery. It is not resolved. This is despite the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal having given its final judgement. The PM could have just called the three chief ministers and said: “Look this is a drinking water issue, and not an irrigation issue, so please resolve this amicably, and this is the formula that the Government of India has worked out; you follow it.”

This is exactly what Indira Gandhi had accomplished with the Cauvery water issue for the Chennai city. I don’t think Modi has come to Karnataka with any positivity. Let him (Modi) come here a hundred times. The people are with us. They know what he has done, and they also know what we have achieved.

The PM has questioned Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah contesting from two seats? Do you think that decision of the Congress party has given political rivals an opportunity to embarrass your party?

Let me ask the PM: Where is the justification in him raising the issue when he himself contested from two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections? He lacks the credibility to ask that question.

But the move has led to a perception that Siddaramaiah is nervous about the Chamundeshwari seat, so he is contesting from Badami as well…

Fair enough. But what has that go to do with the BJP. It is the Congress party’s decision. I was afraid that everyone would get together and defeat me, so I wanted to go contest from another seat – what is wrong in that? It is our internal party matter.

If our high command did not want… it would have said that we (the Siddaramaiah government) ran the government (in Karnataka) for five years; now why was he is contesting from two seats? That question should have been asked by our high command, not you (the PM).

Where does the election stand? Your assessment…

I have 30 years of experience. I have faced seven Assembly elections, five Parliament elections, and umpteen local body elections. I have served eight years as the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president. My analysis is that there is some sort of a wave in favour of the Congress. The public perception is that the government did good work. Our social welfare schemes – Anna Bhagya, Indira canteens, milk scheme, etc – have been lauded.

We have also given development, not just milk and rice. We have done good work on irrigation – 600,000 hectares have come under irrigation. Nearly 3,500 Mw of electricity generation capacity has been installed in the past five years. Roads and bridges have been constructed. The quality of our state highways is on a par with national highways.

What is the party’s main poll plank?

Our primary poll plank is development. Last time we went with a negative poll campaign – we said B S Yeddyurappa went to jail. Others in that government went to jail. They destroyed the wealth of Karnataka. But this time we might mention in passing the legacy issues to remind people of the misrule of the BJP government from 2008 to 2013, but our major plank is progress and development.

But the Congress party has also given tickets to tainted people…

One or two we have done, let me admit that. But when we have given tickets, we have examined and analysed very carefully and separated the legal and electoral matters. If people elect him (a tainted candidate) in any party, it is the people’s mandate.

We took Anand Singh because there were reports that he would win again, whether from the BJP or any other party. Then he approached us and said he was fed up with the BJP. I believe his (Singh’s) mother is a Muslim. He said he doesn’t like BJP’s policies. We examined the case, and we have not won that seat in the past three-four elections (Vijayanagar constituency in Ballari). So we told him that we would not support you in legal matters. It is electoral politics, after all. It is democracy, after all. (Singh is a two-term BJP legislator and was a minister in the BJP government. He was arrested in 2015 on charges of corruption and is now contesting on a Congress ticket).

There is some anti-incumbency against the Congress government. How have you dealt with that?

I don’t think there is any significant anti-incumbency against the government. Against some individual sitting MLAs, yes. We know it. That is why we couldn’t give tickets to 12-13 sitting MLAs.

But there are reports of infighting and groupism…

There is no infighting. There are differences; that is natural in any political party. But to say that there was groupism over demands for distribution of tickets is totally wrong.

Yes, if tomorrow the party returns to power, people will have their aspirations to be the chief minister. It will be up to the Congress legislature party (CLP) to decide whether the present incumbent would continue. Then the party high command will need to jump in (to assess the situation).

There has been some criticism of the social welfare schemes, particularly the Anna Bhagya scheme. Your opponents say it has made people lazy…

See this is the problem. They have not understood the issues of the poor. Why did we go for Anna Bhagya? It wasn’t about populism. We started early. It was one of the very first decisions of our government after taking over. People had faced continuous droughts for five years. People living in villages were migrating in search of jobs to Mumbai, or moving to coffee plantations. The BJP does not understand this. The BJP doesn’t understand hunger and poverty.

But it isn’t that the Anna Bhagya was provided only to the rural poor. We implemented the same scheme in urban areas as well.

It isn’t that we have ignored development. We have constructed concrete, or what has been called here ‘tender sure’ roads, which will last 20-25 years. But like any other big city – Delhi or Mumbai, for example – the vehicular traffic is increasing and there is a traffic problem. We have proposed a separate plan for Bengaluru for the next five years, and we will fix the problem.

What is the influence of the Hindutva ideology on the people of Karnataka?

It will not work in Karnataka. People are not buying the Hindutva story at all. They want development, an active progressive and clean government, something that we have given them.

What about AHINDA polarisation?

Yes, we are accused of polarising AHINDA (a Kannada acronym for tribals, dalits, OBCs). The Scheduled Castes, OBCs and minorities are with us. They comprise 52 per cent of the state’s population. That is why the Congress is painted as a poor man’s party. Fine, we have accepted that.

But to say that major communities are not with us is incorrect. In 2013, we had given Lingayats 42 tickets and 27 of them won. We had given Vokkaligas 44 tickets and 19 of them won.