Congress to begin Karnataka campaign in BJP chief’s Shikaripur constituency

The Congress will launch its Bharat Jodo 2.0 campaign in Shikaripur, the Karnataka constituency represented by state BJP president B.Y. Vijayendra. The campaign will begin on Wednesday with a 10-kilometre padayatra and a public meeting.

Several senior party leaders, including Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president B.K. Hariprasad, are expected to participate. The march will start at Kittadahalli and pass through Maddi Note Cross, Hosanagara Cross and Nelavagilu Cross before reaching Shikaripur town.

The public meeting will be held at the town marketplace. School Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa, who is also the minister in charge of Shivamogga district, visited Shikaripur on Monday and met local party leaders. He said the constituency had been chosen to send a political message across Karnataka and that the Congress was committed to winning it at the next election.

District Congress Committee president H.C. Yogesh said the party had decided to conduct Bharat Jodo 2.0 in all 84 Assembly constituencies it lost in the previous Assembly elections. Shikaripur will host the first programme.

Mr Yogesh said the constituency was politically significant and had historical associations with Esur, a village linked to the freedom movement. During the padayatra, Congress workers will speak to residents about the party’s guarantee schemes and what Mr Yogesh described as injustice associated with the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The supplied account does not state the date of the next Assembly election or provide a response from the BJP to the planned campaign.

The event is nevertheless positioned by Congress leaders as an effort to challenge the BJP in a constituency represented by its state president.