Vitriol-filled campaign for Karnataka poll ends

BENGALURU: The vitriolfilled campaign for the Karnataka Assembly elections ended on Thursday with top leaders of the BJP and Congress, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, making a lastgasp effort to sway the voters in a likely cliffhanger.

From corruption to communalism, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's Rs 70 lakh Hublot watch to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, the electoral potboiler had it all.

Like all state polls since he assumed the reins of power in New Delhi, Modi helmed the BJP'S adrenaline-charged campaign despite the party having declared B S Yeddyurappa its chief ministerial candidate, while Rahul Gandhi helmed that of the Congress.

Though Modi remained out of the electoral scene for a long time after addressing a public meeting in February, he launched a blitzkrieg on May 1, addressing over a score of rallies in his bid to wrest the key southern state, which BJP chief Amit Shah dubbed as the party's “gateway to south”, from the Congress.

Always high on energy during elections, he adddressed at least three rallies every day when he was in Karnataka, or else interacted with workers of the BJP'S different frontal organisations through the ‘Namo App'.

Though development remained part of the political discourse, it was overtaken by a slanging match between the two parties over corruption.

The prime minister and Amit Shah raised the issue of the killing of RSS and BJP workers by SDPI, a radical Islamist political party floated by the Popular Front of India, which Modi said was the “abc of communalism”.

Shah claimed two of the candidates fielded by the Congress were, in fact, members of the SDPI.

On day one of his campaign, Modi raked up the issue of Sonia's foreign origin at an election rally where he dared the Congress chief to speak for 15 minutes about the achievements of the Karnataka government in any language, including his “mother's mother tongue”.

An emotional Rahul Gandhi hit back today at a press conference where he said,”my mother is an Italian. She has lived the larger part of her life in India. She is more Indian than many, many Indians I have seen.”

Modi repeatedly addressed the Siddaramaiah ministry as “seedha rupaiah government (a government that takes bribes for work) and “10 per cent commission government”.

Provoked, Siddaramaiah first called the Modi dispensation a “90 per cent commission government” and then served legal notices to Modi and Shah, demanding an apology and threatening to file Rs 100 crore civil and criminal defamation suit if they did not tender it.

Rally after election rally, Rahul Gandhi targeted BJP'S chief ministerial candidate Yeddyurappa over corruption when he helmed the state while BJP was in power between 2008 and 2013.

“Will Modi ji tell the people of Karnataka why a man who spent time in jail for corruption is the BJP'S CM candidate? Why the BJP has given 8 tickets to Reddy brothers and their associates who looted Rs 35,000 crore from the people of Karnataka?” he asked, as he sought to paint the saffron party into a corner.

The Congress president frequently referred to fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi in his speeches, alleging the government allowed him to flee the country after defrauding the Punjab National Bank fraud.

Modi, who has powered the BJP to victory after victory in Assembly polls in states in the last four years, also invoked nationalism and B R Ambedkar, after he was in the Congress president's firing line over a string of attacks on Dalits. He slammed the Congress for raising questions about the Army's surgical strikes in POK.

Though Modi did not campaign in Karnataka today, he addressed BJP'S SC/ST/OBC and Slum Morcha workers through his Namo App and said, “There is no place for dalits and backward classes in the heart of the Congress.” He accused the Congress of “insulting” Ambedkar, a Dalit icon.

Sonia Gandhi, who avoided the rough and tumble of elections for two years after she was taken ill during a roadshow in Varanasi ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls, also addressed a rally in the Lingayat stronghold of Vijayapura where she said “Modi is possessed by the devil of ‘Congress mukt Bharat' (bhoot lag gaya hai)”. NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday observed that assuring the minorities on alleviation of their socioeconomic backwardness does not amount to corrupt practice and rejected Rashtriya Hindu Sena chief Pramod Muthalik's plea alleging that Congress was seeking votes by using religion in its poll manifesto in Karnataka.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra also referred to various judgements and said since 1952 till 2017, the top court has ruled that “once the poll process begins, no court shall interfere with it”.

The counsel for Muthalik referred to a 7-judge bench judgement of 2017 and said it has been held that the practice of seeking votes in the name of religion was a “corrupt” act.

He sought a direction from the bench, also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, that the Congress be asked to remove certain clauses from its manifesto assuring sops to minorities on the ground of religion.

“Assuring minorities to alleviate their social and economic backwardness is not an appeal to seek votes in the name of religion,” the bench said, dismissing Muthalik's plea.

The court then said the 7-judge bench judgement had dealt with the term ‘his' used in section 123 (3)of the Representation of the People Act and seeking votes in the name of religion, caste, etc. It was held that the term “his” included candidate, his or her agents and voters as well, the bench said.

The apex court, on January 2, 2017, had delivered a landmark verdict to separate religion, caste and other issues from politics and by a majority of 4:3 had held as “corrupt” the practice of candidates appealing for votes on the basis of such identities. While dismissing Muthalik's plea, the bench said though it cannot interfere with the Karnataka poll process as the voting was scheduled on May 12, statutory remedies can be availed after election results are declared. The right-wing Rashtriya Hindu Sena chief had sought directions to the EC to delete the Congress party's alleged appeal in its manifesto.