The Congress and the Gandhi family have adopted a new strategy for the10 May 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 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 focusing 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 focused only on issues specific to Karnataka.
Even in its poll advertisements and campaign material, the Congress has focused largely on the bread-and-butter issues affecting the people of the state. However, even as its campaign focused on state issues, it did commit a few political mistakes, which the BJP and PM Modi were quick to cash in on.
One of these mistakes was when Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge called PM Modi a “poisonous snake”.
While he clarified his statement later, the damage had already been done.
His son, Priyank Kharge, too, called the Prime Minister a “worthless son (nalayak beta)”.