People’s verdict is a warning, time for course correction, says D K Shivakumar

Bengaluru, June 10: Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar has termed the recent verdict in the general elections as a warning bell and felt it was time for course correction. 

Speaking to media persons at his official residence on Monday, he said: "We will be holding review meetings with all the leaders. It is time to introspect and make necessary course corrections. The results are a warning bell." 

"We have a review meeting for Bengaluru constituencies today and similar review meetings will be held in other constituencies of the State as well. We will announce dates for these review meetings shortly," he said. 

Asked about AICC president Mallikarjuna Kharge expressing unhappiness about the results of Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, he said, "We were confident of winning 14 to15 seats and hoped for even 20 seats. But we have failed to achieve these numbers. We have to accept people's verdict. We haven't got votes even in villages and towns of party leaders, we will deliberate on this."

Answering questions on some ministers blaming MLAs for the defeat, he said, "Nobody has complained about it to me. There is no point in blame game. Leaders who are in charge of the constituencies must talk to party workers and investigate the reason for the defeat and come out with recommendations.” 

Referring to a statement by MLA Basavaraj Shivaganga, he said, MLAs should not issue statements in public unnecessarily. They need to sit with the party workers and discuss the results and find out what went wrong.