‘A chief minister should wipe the tears of people’

BENGALURU: Dinesh Gundu Rao, 48, took over as the Congress chief in Karnataka on July 4, over a month after the party formed a coalition government with the Janata Dal (Secular) in the state.

He spoke to

Vikram Gopal and Venkatesha Babu

about the challenges ahead, Lok Sabha polls and managing the state’s coalition government.

Edited excerpts: from our observers. And generally, we have had some discussions, but no formal committee has looked into this.

We know generally what went wrong. I would not say that. It was misrepresented to the community that we were out to divide them when the claim to have a separate religion tag has been going on for many decades with leaders of all political parties having been a part of it.

But the BJP used it very effectively to say that we were trying to divide the community, which was not true. Similarly, Hindutva in the coastal belt affected us where again false propaganda was used.

Basically, emotional issues took over. We gave a stable, scandal-free government… But those issues went onto the backburner. We spoke to Kumaraswamy. Maybe it was because he was under pressure or what was being said by media. That is what he told me. The chief minister’s job is always with pressure, from your own party, coalition partners and people. (Kumaraswamy) told me that the main reason was the negativity on the social media.

And added to this was the media highlighting only the negative aspects. I do not think a chief minister should do that.

He is the leader of the state and he is the person who should wipe other people’s tears.