Karnataka elections: Will Congress’ personal attack on Modi backfire?

BENGALURU: With less than a fortnight to go before campaigning for assembly elect ions in Karnataka ends, Congress functionaries broke a promise they had made to themselves about s ix months ago — not to personally attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Besides, Congress had also resolved not to make c ontroversial statements on Muslims and Lingayats. Often in the past, BJP used such slurs to turn the tables o n their opponents and Cong ress was very aware of the s trategy.
And yet, within the span o f a few days, two of their stalwarts, AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge and former chief minister Siddaramaiah, gave into the temptation and fell into BJP’s trap.
While Kharge dubbed Modi a “venomous snake’’ at an election rally in Ron in Gadag district, Siddaramaiah, in an interview, said: “There’s already a Lingayat CM [Basavaraj Bommai]. He is the root of all corruption in the state. ”

To make matters worse, Kharge’s son and former minister Priyank Kharge, during a rally on Monday, referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “nalayak beta” (incompetent son).
BJP has latched on to these verbal attacks and its prominent leaders are now slamming Congress and its senior functionaries. Modi himself retorted to Kharge’s jibe, saying the people of Karnataka will respond on May 10, whileadding Congress has hurled “91 abuses” at him.
However, the big question is: Will these verbal attacks hurt Congress’ prospects and benefit BJP? The opinions of some experts and BJP functionaries are divided.
“The war of words has reached acerbic proportions on both sides,” said Sandeep Shastri, psephologist. “How strongly and strategically does the rival take on such personal attacks will determine if it will be a gamechanging comment. Bear in mind how the ‘chaiwalla’ remark transformed the face of the Lok Sabha election campaign in 2014.”
But Prof Ravindra Reshme, a political analyst, said: “While Kharge appeared to have crossed his party’s Lakshman Rekha, he did well to contain the damage by quickly retracting. Instead of placing their report card before the electorate, BJP is making shrill noises against their opponents. Even Siddaramaiah’s ‘corrupt Lingayat CM’ comment doesn’t appear to be of any advantage to BJP since enlightened sections of the Lingayat community are themselves sceptical of the image of their two CMs [Bommaiand BS Yediyurappa]. ”
But several BJP functionaries are gung-ho and cite past poll results to show how personal attacks on Modi have backfired. It all began with then Congress president Sonia Gandhi referring to Modi as “maut ka saudagar” (merchant of death) while campaigning during the 2007 Gujarat assembly elections. BJP won 117 of the 182 seats in that election. Again in 2017 in Gujarat, senior Congress functionary Mani Shankar Aiyar had called him “neech aadmi” (vile man). Modi presented himself as a victim and used Aiyar’s attack to BJP’s advantage. BJP retained office by winning 99 seats.
In 2022 in Gujarat, senior Congress leader Madhusudan Mistry said Congresswould show Modi his “aukaat”, and Kharge called him “Raavan”. In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Aiyar had called Modi a “chaiwala” and claimed that he would never become PM. Modi turned the tables on Congress and launched a massive campaign titled ‘Chai pe charcha’, helping BJP win 282 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats.
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi ran a campaign titled “chowkidar chor hai (the guard is a thief)” after Modi labelled himself the “chowkidar” of the nation. BJP again reaped the advantage.
Will BJP now derive political mileage from personal attacks against Modi? The results on May 13 will provide the answer.