Stage set for Karnataka poll battle as campaigning comes to a close

Bengaluru: Curtains came down on the high decibel campaigning for the Assembly polls in Karnataka on Monday evening, setting the stage for the mega ballot battle on May 10.

With the stakes being high this election, the major political parties in contention – the BJP, Congress and JD(S) – and their candidates have made a strong pitch seeking to boost their prospects at the hustings.

In the intensity of the campaign, there were instances of leaders crossing the line of public discourse and indulging in personal attacks and abuses against each other.

The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days.

While the ruling BJP, riding on the Modi juggernaut, wants to break the 38-year-old jinx and retain its southern citadel, the Congress wants to wrest power to give the party much-needed elbow room and momentum to position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Also, the JD(S) led by former PM H D Deve Gowda was seen putting all its might into campaigning, wanting to emerge as “king” and not “Kingmaker”, hoping to get the required numbers to form a government on its own.

“A government with full majority” seemed to be the favourite slogan for the leaders of all the political parties during campaigning for the elections to the 224-member Assembly, as they stressed on getting a clear mandate to form a strong and stable government in the state.

The BJP’s campaign seemed largely “centralised” with the focus mainly on PM Modi, ‘double-engine’ government, national issues and programmes or achievements of the union government coupled with just a few from the state.

The Congress by-and-large focused on local issues and its campaign also was run by its state leaders initially. However, its central leaders such as AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra pitched in subsequently.

JD(S) too ran a highly localised campaign, anchored solely by its leader H D Kumaraswamy, with party patriarch Deve Gowda too joining in later despite his advanced age and related ailments.

Modi made a major campaign push in the last one week since April 29, by holding 19 mega public meetings and six roadshows, canvassing votes for BJP candidates across the state with the poll slogan ‘Ee Baariya Nirdhara, Bahumatada BJP Sarkara’ (This Time’s Decision: Majority BJP Government).