Almost two months before the elections, Gandhi undertook an extensive tour of the state as a part of his "Discovering India" series. Though he began from Orissa in February, Karnataka became the first election-bound state on Gandhi's road map. He spent five days in the states and visited areas like Chamarajanagar, Bijapur, Hubli Dharwar, Gulbarga and Mysore.
In the districts Gandhi toured in Karnataka, the Congress got 22 out of 54 seats. This gives him a strike rate of 41 per cent while the overall performance of the Congress is 76 out of 224 seats in the assembly, showing just a 34 per cent strike rate.
As Gandhi is trying to build his unique image in polics via a special appeal to the tribals and the dalits - the erstwhile voters of the Congress, he started his Karnataka tour in the tribal dominated Chamarajnagar district and the results show that Gandhi has been able to deliver his most impressive performance there. All the four seats in the Chamarajanagar region have gone to the Congress.
The party had a tally of zero last time. He also wrested Mysore (7 out of 11 seats) and Gulbarga (7 out of 13 seats) for the Congress, mainly from Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular).
However, his charisma didn't quite work where the Congress had to fight against the BJP. In Bijapur, his party got 3 out of 8 seats and in Gadag and Bagalkot, the Congress couldn't open its account.
In the Hubli Dharwar region too, Rahul Gandhi's party managed to get just one seat. This is the third time he campaigned in a state elections and performed better than his previous assignments.
The Congress head quarters, at Delhi's Akbar Road, wore an deserted look in the expected lines throughout the day as the Bjp emerged victorious. The party's primary assessment is that the secular votes got divided and the BJP benefitted.
"We had to field 17 candidates from the minority community while the BJP didn't field any. As soon as minorty candidates were fielded, the votes got polarized", said Prithviraj Chavan, the AICC general secretary in charge of the state.
Another party general secretary B K Hariprasad echoed the same logic. But insiders also pointed out that Kuruba leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's exit from the Deve Gowda camp didn't help the Congress much. "We expected a lot more from him. But his entry couldn't sweep the OBC vote for us", said a leader.
And of course, there are allegations about ticket distribution where many deserving candidates failed to get the nomination. When asked about the flaws in ticket distribution, a party general secretary said, "it was not just wrong. It was horrible!".
