Unity, meticulous campaign behind Congress’s impressive performance in Karnataka

An unusually united fight for party’s standards, concentration on local issues, last minute off-script moves like calling for banning Bajrang Dal and a meticulous campaign reaching out to households are among a number of attributes that contributed to Congress’s impressive performance against the BJP in Karnataka.

Anticipating a victory, the Congress started targeting the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government by designing a campaign around corruption – the PayCM campaign and the allegations of 40 per cent commission – and reaching out to households. It was backed up by the announcements and promise of five guarantees that touched the lives of people.

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A senior leader acknowledged that the five guarantees, which they unveiled over two months, played a huge role as it touched various sections and sent a message to voters. Local issues rather than national ones like Adani Group dominated the campaign though it set the tone for Congress’s future electioneering by talking about caste census, quota and social justice.

The campaign managers set the mega narratives on corruption, price rise and other issues as well as ran Kannadiga pride-related issues like Nandini. Their parallel narratives with a short life span included rebellion in the BJP and alleged insult to Lingayats by the BJP.

Congress workers covered almost 80 per cent of the households across Karnataka twice – first before the polls were announced – with guarantee cards, a first for many voters who said they rarely saw the party wooing voters this way.

One of the first tasks the party’s central leadership undertook was to ensure unity among Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar, two claimants for the post of Chief Minister, or at least postpone the infighting till the polling is over. The party had a relatively peaceful candidate selection process too.

The duo stuck to the script at least till the counting day complimenting each other's work. The party, as per a plan, brought both the leaders on a single platform on regular intervals to project unity with both even sitting for a shooting of their conversation, which could not have been thought about a year ago.

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The party had activated its organisation as the Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Karnataka in October and just before that the organisation had managed to convince both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar to bury the hatchet for the time being. At the same time, it was looking for leaks from the BJP side, which unravelled as the election dates were announced.

While containing rebels within, the Congress lost no time in projecting the BJP as a house in disarray – with leaders like Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi rising in rebellion along with others. It lost no time in attracting rebels as well as closing doors on them as in some cases, including those of BJP ministers, as it could not provide the seats they demanded.

“I can only count two occasions when we went off script. Those were not expected or at least not discussed with all. One was the inclusion of banning Bajrang Dal and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” a Congress campaign observer told DH.

The party also believes that it set the agenda for the BJP to respond like in Nandini. At the same time, it also went on silent mode soon after there were apprehensions that the Bajrang Dal gamble may go wrong. Kharge was quick to “regret” his comments against Modi saying it was meant for BJP.