Up to EC, voters to ensure free, fair polls

Karnataka has entered the electoral battle ground with the Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing the schedule for the state Assembly elections and kickstarting the process. The election will be held on May 10 and the counting will be on May 13. There are 40 days left for campaigning. But parties and candidates started their preparations months ago and have been in campaign mode.

The model code of conduct has come into force and the government, parties, candidates, and others will have to be careful about what they say and do. It is going to be a long and hot campaign on crowded political roads and lanes where they may consider everything they say and do fair and fine, as in war.

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The Election Commission will have to ensure that the poll code of conduct is strictly adhered to. It has given an inkling of the challenge ahead when it said that unaccounted funds seized by it till now is as much as what it seized during the entire campaign in 2018. There are other challenges, too, as the code is not just about money.

The election is important for all three main contenders, and more so for the Congress. The BJP wants to retain Karnataka, and the Janata Dal (S) wants to maximise its relevance. It is the first of a series of important state elections leading up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress needs a win more than the BJP to assert its national credentials, but the BJP cannot let go of its only southern perch. There is anti-incumbency sentiment in play, with corruption and the state government’s lacklustre performance making key poll themes. The BJP will have to bank heavily on the Centre and its central leaders, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for its campaign. The Congress has its share of issues and problems, and has to contend with a most formidable electoral machine.

Everything will be thrown into the campaign cauldron — caste, class, religion, money, muscle, right claims, wrong ones, pretences, affectations, public interest, private ambitions, hatred, promises, hopes, and everything else. There will be appeals to groups and individuals, and to regional, local and other sentiments and invocations of both the past and the future. The voters will have to judge everything on offer, and it is for them to ensure that the politicians do not run away with their votes and their future. Politics concerns more people and their lives now than at any time in the past, and elections are the most potent means and expression of democracy. Karnataka deserves a clean and fair election. The Election Commission and the people themselves should make sure that they get it.