Karnataka assembly elections: Campaign ends today; how the three major parties are placed

BENGALURU: High-octane public campaigning for the 224 assembly seats in Karnataka is set to end on Monday and voters will decide the fate of candidates and their parties on Wednesday, ‘Election Day’. Some poll surveys suggest it will be a close contest between the governing BJP and main opposition Congress, but JD(S) is hoping to play a kingmaker role, if not win a majority on its own. Manu Aiyappa Kanathanda looks at how things stack up for the three major parties.
BJP hopeful Modi’s blitzkrieg will pay rich dividends
After some opinion polls gave Congress a slight edge, BJP unleashed a high-octane campaign, especially in the last leg, by involving its bigwigs and central functionaries. PM Narendra Modi held over 20 rallies across the state, besides an impressive mega roadshow in Bengaluru spanning two days. He covered nearly 25 assembly segments. Modi used Congress’ two missteps — personal attacks on him and the other that it may ban Bajrang Dal — to attack the grand old party and emotionally connect with people. In the final 10 days, Modi began his speech with “Bajrang bali ki jai” to drive home the point.
Union minister Amit Shah, too, ran a blitzkrieg, targeting Congress on the issue of scrapping the 4% reservation for Muslims. Besides this, the saffron party is also relying heavily on its caste arithmetic after it provided additional reservations to SCs, STs, Lingayats, and Vokkaligas. While Modi and Shah have boosted BJP’s confidence, it remains to be seen whether it will translate into votes. No party has won a successive mandate in the state since 1985, but BJP is hopeful of scripting history.
Cong banks on guarantees, anti-incumbency
Congress is hopeful of regaining the helm in Karnataka, which was once its stronghold. Despite PM Modi’s last-minute bombardment, Congress functionaries are exuding confidence, largely banking on its five pre-election guarantees and strong anti-incumbency against the BJP government. The party feels the promises will help exploit anger against rising inflation. The party did well to keep up the heat on BJP by discussing only local issues during their month-long campaign and making corruption and ‘misgovernance’ of the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government the central theme.
However, the party did err on two counts in the last leg of their campaign — by calling PM Modi a poisonous snake and suggesting it may ban Bajrang Dal. Experts are divided on the impact this will have on results, but some within the party believe it could have been avoided. Sonia Gandhi’s first rally in Hubballi after four years is a pointer to the party’s confidence. She had exhorted voters to end “BJP’s dark rule”.
Will JD(S) emerge kingmaker again?
The third big player in the fray, JD(S), led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and his son HD Kumaraswamy, had prepared well in advance for the poll battle but were dwarfed in the final leg of campaigning by the high octane pitch of the two national parties. The poor health of Gowda and Kumaraswamy, who was twice chief minister, proved to be a big deterrent and, in the final leg, the party could not focus on parts of North Karnataka where its prospects looked bright.
The regional outfit stayed equidistant from both BJP and Congress throughout its campaign and focused on state issues such as farmers’ welfare, poverty, regional development, and social justice in its campaign and manifesto. The party is hopeful of winning a decent number of seats, and with several surveys projecting a hung assembly, it could again emerge kingmaker.