Congress faces protest from workers over party tickets

The Congress leadership in Karnataka is left red faced over the unusual public show of rebellion by party workers who have been denied renomination or party tickets to the upcoming assembly elections.

Congress workers in Karnataka's Mandya attacked district party president C D Gangadhar's car with eggs for not announcing the name of the candidate for the forthcoming state Assembly elections.The video of the eggs thrown on the car has gone viral.

According to local media, Gangadhar went to KR Pet assembly constituency on Monday to discuss with party workers about the poll preparation.

However, the party workers tried to compel him to name the Congress candidate for the seat.

During the conversation, the workers raised slogans and shouted at him to reveal the name of the candidate but Gangadhar maintained a stoic silence and kept smiling.

The Congress Mandya district president went past them and managed to sit inside his car. Moments later, the party workers smashed many eggs on the windshield of his SUV and other cars in the convoy.

There is talk in political circles in Mandya that Karnataka Minister K C Narayana Gowda is set to join Congress and may fight the election on the opposition party ticket.

The Congress workers have maintained that only a staunch party loyalist should get a ticket this time and nobody else.

Narayana Gowda, who got elected from JDS in the 2018 election, had jumped to BJP to help BS Yediyurappa form government in 2019. Later, he won the by-election from KR Pet and created history.

In August 2021, Narayana Gowda was appointed as the Minister of Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics in the government of Karnataka led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. Prior to this, he had held the position of Deputy Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

Now, he is likely to join Congress in the presence of KPCC president DK Shivakumar during the Prajadhwani Yatra on March 13.

Karnataka will go to polls by May.