The inside story of the state’s victory and what the grand old party can learn from this success
New Delhi, Bangalore,date of issue: May 29, 2023 , Updates: May 19, 2023 23:29 IST
Congress President Kharge with Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar, Surjewala and others in Bengaluru on May 13; (Photo: Chandradeep Kumar)
RSandeep Surjewala’s art of winning elections seems to have learned something from Sun Tzu’s playbook. The ancient Chinese general believed that “supreme excellence consists in breaking down the enemy’s resistance without fighting”. When the lanky 55-year-old Surjewala was made general secretary in-charge of Karnataka in September 2020, he knew that defeating the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be an uphill task. Assembly elections in the state were just two and a half years away. So, he used a strategy in Haryana’s Narwana in 2005 when, as a young legislator, he defeated veteran Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in the state elections. “You destroy your opponent’s credibility to such an extent,” he says, “that when he finally goes to the polls, he’s already given up. For that, you have to sabotage him until Taxes have to be run until they are completely abolished.