All the dust and din raised over the hurricane visits of the national leaders of the political parties have not been successful in enliven the election eve atmosphere in Karnataka and create a wave of sorts among the voters in their favour.
A galaxy of leaders led by party supreme Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh, batted for Congress and for the BJP the team was led by the party’s patriarch L K Advani and included likes of Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Narendra Modi and others, . It appears that there is total disconnect between the national leaders and the local electorate. The national issues raised by them could hardly evoke any responsive chord. The meeting of the Prime Minister in Bangalore on 29th was nothing short of disaster, with the rain God also pitching in.
Even otherwise, the current election to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly is all set to go down in the electoral history as one of most uninspiring dull elections ever held in Karnataka so far, going by the issues raised or not rose or deliberately sidestepped One can clearly discern a marked lack of enthusiasm over the poll among them.
This has nothing to do with the absence of the audio visual audible signs of the campaign this time, thanks to the strict action taken by the Election Commission. The, walls along the streets are clean, fortunately free from the gaudy looking poll graffiti. The war of buntings, banners and posters of different dimensions by the political parties, is practically absent. The atmosphere is singularly free from the cacophony of noise of the propaganda, which used to hit the audible sensitivities of the people hitherto. (Of course, this has hit badly the economy of the workers involved in such activities, is incidental to the issue. Also incidental but said has been the forced saving of the money by the contesting candidates too).
Anybody could perceive during any casual round of the interiors that there is definite absence of wave, whether pro or anti any party, even as the campaign is coming to an end. Both the Congress and BJP, the two main contestants have been harping on the governance, with their own variation. The concept of governance free of corruption by Congress is limited to Karnataka and what BJP advocates is the governance tempered with development – its Gujarat model. . Both have been quite subtle in glossing over their own dubious record in corruption, the Congress at the Centre and BJP in the state. The manifestos of the two parties, promising grandiose schemes, which on the face of it everybody knows cannot be implemented, have been practically ignored. The promises made by other outfits in the field namely the JDS of Devegowda, KJP of Yeddyurappa and BSR Congress of Sriramulu, which are personality oriented parties, with hardly any ideological content, are not taken seriously, since the people are generally are mainly interested in the post poll arrangement in the event of hung verdict.
The manifestos routinely released on the eve of elections, more as a ritual than as an article of faith for serving the people, have hardly caused any ripples since it has been a public knowledge that these are mere scrap of paper once the election is over.
It is not that there are no problems which are worrying the people. Each region has its own bagful of problems. For example, the Cauvery water dispute is a main problem in Old Mysore on which the region has witnessed lot of emotionally filled agitation. And the reports are that the BJP government had messed up the matter through the foolish decision of its irrigation ministers to boycott the Monitoring Committee chaired by the Prime Minister, for which the Supreme Court pulled up the state government. In the Krishna valley area of the Northern Karnataka districts the slow pace of the execution the works, as a result of which share of Karnataka’s unutilized water has been merrily flowing into Andhra Pradesh much to the chagrin of the farmers of the arid tracts of the northern region.
The implementation of the Nanjundappa Committee report on Removal of Regional Imbalance is tardy and unsatisfactory with which ever government in power since 2002 are to be blamed. If the state government led by Mr. Krishna were to take up the report for implementation providing for an additional investment of Rest. 16,000 crores within eight years time frame, as recommended by the committee, it would have been possible to create a level playing field for development of the regions by this time already. It would have benefited not only the Northern Karnataka but the couple of areas of southern Karnataka too. But still the implementation has a long way to go and is being done fits and pieces. Besides there are myriad local problems like the handling of the drought the drinking water situation in the districts, which newspapers doing the election survey speak about.
But the problem in Karnataka has been the absence of mechanism to channelise the peoples grievances into votes. And the political parties have been enjoying the reprieve so much so that none of the major political parties have bothered to make a reference to it in their manifestoes at least.
Again, the political parties as a class, have uniformly not bothered to address themselves may be more out of ignorance than due to any deliberation, to woo the segment of the newly enrolled voters, who are considerable in number and are sure to exercise their franchise this time. They are not politically aligned at the moment and could be easily attracted. It looks as though political parties are even not aware of this phenomenon. The number of new voters is put around 35 lakhs. They can even be called as game changers too in any exigency.
Under the circumstances it would be no surprise if the poll turn out in the assembly elections fails to rise beyond the average of around 65%. In that case only interference one could draw is that while the new voters would have cast their votes, their senior in equal number must have opted out due to disenchantment. (Posted on April 30, 2013 @ 12.30pm)
(Author is a Senior Journalist and Columnist. Mobile: +91 94480 74872 Email :madan.mm@gmail.com)
