Bengaluru, July 11: Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar today said that the Congress Party would evaluate and rectify the mistakes of the Lok Sabha elections and be prepared to take on BJP-JDS combine.
Speaking to reporters at the KPCC office, he said, “We increased our tally from 1 to 9 in the recent Lok Sabha elections, but that is not up to our expectation of 14-15 seats. The performance will be evaluated by the party in presence of the AICC fact finding committee. This process is taking place across the country. We are sharing our reports for the four geographical regions of the state. We will discuss and find out the shortcomings.”
“We had fielded very good candidates in the recent Lok Sabha elections. We need to understand the subtle factors which have influenced the results. We knew BJP-JDS combine had an advantage, we will prepare ourselves to fight them in the future elections.
ED raids unwarranted
Asked about the ED raids in the Valmiki Development Corporation case, he said, “It is clear there are irregularities in the case. The State government has formed an SIT to investigate and it will come out with the findings. The government is also attaching the funds which were misused. The ED could have evaluated if the SIT investigation was in order, I don’t know why ED raids are being done now. The investigations are going on in a free and fair manner. Let’s see what the ED will do.”
Asked if the ED raids are politically motivated, he said he would comment on it once the ED investigations are complete.
SCPTS funds
Asked about National SC Commission issuing notice to the Chief Secretary regarding using SCPTS money for guarantee schemes, he said, “Karnataka is the second state after Andhra Pradesh to bring out legislation for separate grants for SC and ST development. We are using these funds only for their welfare, the Commission should be ashamed to issue a notice in this regard. There is nothing wrong in using SCPTS funds for guarantee schemes.”
