Why the campaign in Karnataka has become a free-for-all

The battle for Karnataka enters its final leg with all parties engaging in an aggressive campaign.

Since the past couple of days, it has been a free-for-all campaign with leaders indulging in nasty and personal comments. While the Congress called the Prime Minister a 'poisonous snake' the BJP hit back by referring to Sonia Gandhi as a 'vishkanya.'

The personal and nasty comments are in no way going to get lesser in the days to come. Leading psephologist, Dr. Sandeep Shastri tells OneIndia that the campaign ahead is only going to get nastier in nature. On both sides, however nastiness is not going to help, he says.

When you make a nasty comment, what happens is that the supporters lap it and up and they go ballistic on it. However on the ground these comments do not make too much of a difference. Those who are opposed to you will not base their opinion based on that comment. "Such comments in my view do not make any difference. It only clears the campaign pitch and makes the atmosphere more vitiated," Dr. Shastri adds.

The Congress and the BJP had initially began their campaign by stating that they will only focus on what they have done and would do. The Congress in particular had made it clear that it would focus on issues such as corruption and the four promises it would fulfil if voted to power. The BJP on the other hand made it clear that it would only focus on the achievements of the state government and also the developmental works undertaken by the Narendra Modi government. The pitch was for a double-engine sarkar.

However as the elections are nearing all this has started to change and parties across have been indulging in personal and nasty remarks.

"If you look at both the parties, they had made it clear that they would stay away from personal comments. But the temptation is to now focus on personal attacks. An ideal campaign should be to tell everyone what you have achieved. What one notices is that both sides are not using the default campaign of what they have achieved, but are indulging in negative politics. For me one wrong does not right another wrong," Dr. Shastri also adds.