Karnataka Election 2023: The win that Congress desperately seeks

Karnataka Election 2023: By ensuring a win in Karnataka, the Congress also wants to bounce back after the recent losses in the North-Eastern states. The Congress by-and-large focused on local issues and its campaign also was run by its state leaders initially. 

Gaining control from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will give the Congress more confidence, be crucial to resurrecting its electoral prospects, and reinforce its position as the major opponent to the saffron party before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party hopes to gain momentum for later this year's elections in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan by winning Karnataka. This will help the party recover from recent defeats in the North-Eastern states.

The Congress, for the most part, concentrated on local concerns, and its campaign was first led by state officials. However, its core leaders, including AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, intervened afterwards.  This election is also a prestige war for the great old party, which has a Kannadiga, Mallikarjun Kharge, from Kalaburagi district, as its national president.

The Congress faced the challenge of containing factionalism during the campaign, particularly between the camps of its two Chief Ministerial candidates, Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar, who were frequently accused of engaging in political one-upmanship. Nevertheless, the Congress was able to maintain unity and make sure that nothing came to light that would jeopardise its chances.

Although Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, two of the party's state leaders, were in the forefront of the campaign at first, Kharge gave it momentum and set the stage for Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi to join in.

The brother-sister team went widely around the state, taking on the BJP's campaign apparatus, which is run by Modi, and disputing and criticising him on a number of subjects, most crucially the issue of corruption, while pledging to provide Karnataka a better choice. Sonia Gandhi, their mother and a past president of the AICC, gave a speech at a party gathering on Saturday in Hubballi.

The party's senior state and central officials participated in 33 roadshows and 99 public engagements. In order to prevent the BJP from "stealing" the election by orchestrating the defection of other party MPs and "manufacturing" a majority in its favour, the Congress has set a goal of obtaining 150 seats and has been lobbying voters to guarantee that it receives an absolute majority.

The main issues that the Congress used to criticise the BJP administration in this election were corruption/scams and the 40% commission accusation, as well as the Adani problem. While emphasising its five main election 'guarantees,' the party attempted to tell the public about its claim against the BJP administration of having "failed to fulfil 90% of its promises" in its 2018 platform.

The BJP responded angrily to Mallikarjun Kharge's "venomous snake" jab at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his son, Chittapur MLA Priyank Kharge's, "nalayak beta" (incompetent son) insult against him. Both comments caused a stir in political circles.

(With PTI inputs)