 "BJP, Congress")
The Congress and the Gandhi family have adopted a new strategy for the May 10 Karnataka Assembly elections -- keeping national issues on the back burner while trying to focus on state issues, including inflation and unemployment.
Pitting themselves against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personality, personal image and the Hindutva agenda has proved disastrous for the Congress.
Hence, the party, this time, decided to stay away from a direct battle against PM Modi and built its Karnataka campaign instead around issues such as inflation, unemployment, and alleged corruption under the BJP government. It is also focussing on the five guarantees it made in its manifesto.
Even Rahul Gandhi has been avoiding the 'Adani-Hindenburg' and 'Chinese intrusion', issues that he commonly raises to target PM Modi and the BJP-led government at the Centre, while campaigning in Karnataka.
Priyanka Gandhi has also adopted a similar line. Sonia Gandhi too during her rally, kept her speech focussed only on issues specific to Karnataka.
Even in its poll advertisements and campaign material, the Congress has focussed largely on the bread-and-butter issues affecting the people of the state.
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However, even as its campaign focused on state issues, it did commit a few political mistakes which BJP and PM Modi was quick to cash in on.
One of these mistakes was when Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called PM Modi a "poisonous snake". While he did clarified on his statement later, the damage had already been done.
His son Priyank Kharge, too, called the Prime Minister a "worthless son (nalayak beta)".
The Congress, in its manifesto, promised "stringent action", including a ban, on Bajrang Dal, on the lines of the People's Front of India (PFI).
In the third instance, while Sonia Gandhi didn't say anything about the 'sovereignty' of Karnataka, the translator from the party's Twitter team misinterpreted her words while translating from Hindi to English.
The matter backfired on the Congress, as BJP came out all guns blazing against the former and also moved the Election Commission, seeking action.
Even PM Modi, while campaigning in Karnataka, alleged that the Congress was bent on carving Karnataka out of India.
With the Congress trying to redirect its focus on issues pertaining to the state and the BJP trying to go big on a few of its 'political mistakes', the battle for Karnakata could well go down to the wire.
Polling for the Karnataka Assembly will be held on May 10 and counting of votes will take place on May 13.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
