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By Rahul Gautam: Three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family will campaign in a state election to ensure a Congress victory in the upcoming Karnataka polls. Party patron Sonia Gandhi will join Rahul-Priyanka’s relentless campaign in the state.
As a last-minute propulsion to boost the party’s electoral prospects, Sonia Gandhi will hold a rally in the Hubli district after a long gap of nearly four years. She hasn’t addressed any election rallies since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. On April 11, 2019, she addressed the media after filing her nomination from her constituency, Raebareli.
Hubli is often dubbed as the ‘Hindutva laboratory’ of the state and has helped the BJP increase its foothold in the southern state.
Be it Indira Gandhi’s thunderous return to Parliament from Chikmagalur in 1978 or Sonia Gandhi defeating Sushma Swaraj from Bellary in 1999, Karnataka has bailed out Congress and the Gandhi family several times.
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At a time when Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified from Parliament and humiliating defeats in the state and Lok Sabha polls are piling up, all hopes are now pinned on Karnataka.
There is a sense in the Congress that if the party manages to snatch power from the BJP in Karnataka, it will gain weight to counter the Modi-Shah juggernaut in the 2024 polls. Moreover, it will place the Congress in a comfortable spot, where it could bargain harder with the Opposition for seat allocation.
One can easily gauge the significance of Karnataka for the Congress by the number of rallies and roadshows held by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. So far, Rahul has led 17 rallies and roadshows in Karnataka, while Priyanka has done 19. In the next four days, the campaign will continue at the same pace with the proposed roadshows and rallies of the Gandhi siblings and on May 8, Rahul Gandhi will hold a press conference.
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Apart from the Gandhi family, old war-horse and party president Mallikarjun Kharge, who belongs to Karnataka, has been camping in the state for the last 20 days, while in-charge Randeep Surjewala has been skilfully keeping the party’s narrative ahead with an army of spokespersons for the last two months.
Congress, which is already passing through one of its toughest phases since inception, clearly knows that victory in Karnataka will keep the party politically valuable till the 2024 polls.
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