From the PayCM campaign to the five promises made in the run-up to the Karnataka Assembly polls, leaders in the state unit of the Congress credited its first-mover advantage in setting the agenda as the reason for its decisive victory. The party was leading in 137 of the 224 seats in the state at 3 pm, according to the Election Commission of India.
Party leaders said the campaign effectively began in 2021 with the alleged Bitcoin scam of 2020, in which a hacker was accused of siphoning off a lot of money.
Subsequently, in 2022 the party launched the PayCM campaign targeting Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the Bharatiya Janata Party over allegations of corruption in the state, levelled by contractors who alleged that they were being asked to pay a commission of 40 per cent for contracts.
Its campaign culminated with the five guarantees it made ahead of the polls. These are the promise of providing 200 units of free power through the Gruha Jyoti scheme; Rs 2,000 a month to each female head of household through the Gruha Lakshmi scheme; free bus passes to all women in the state through the Shakti scheme; Rs 3,000 per month for two years to unemployed graduates and Rs 1,500 per month for unemployed diploma holders; and, 10 kg of foodgrain for every person in a BPL household through the Anna Bhagya scheme.
Priyank Kharge, the chairman of the communication wing of the Congress in Karnataka, told Business Standard the party realised that if it were to win a majority, it could not be caught on the back foot.
“We realised that we had to begin early and that we had to take a lead in setting the agenda, rather than reacting to the BJP, as we had done in the past,” said Kharge, who won from the Chittapur seat.
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To identify the issues that would find resonance, the Congress conducted surveys at the beginning of 2022. Based on these surveys, it realised that issues concerning the livelihood of the people had to be the centrepiece of its campaign.
Towards this end, it narrowed down three core concerns: inflation, corruption, and communal polarisation. With the focus areas narrowed down, it began a two-pronged strategy—corner the government on the issues first and provide solutions to rectify them closer to the election.
“We realised that we had to give people the time to warm up to our campaign, unlike in the past when we may have left it too late,” Kharge said.
In another break from the recent past, the party also decided to take on the BJP aggressively on the issue of communal polarisation. In its manifesto, the party indicated that it would consider banning organisations that spread communal hate, like the Bajrang Dal, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the Popular Front of India.
