BENGALURU: With barely a week left for polling in 14 out of 28 seats in Karnataka, the BJP and the JD(S)-Congress combine are sharpening their focus on problem areas. As the battle heats up, co-ordination committee chief Siddaramaiah began his campaign in the hotbed of infighting, Mandya, on Friday followed by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi campaigning for Nikhil on Saturday. The BJP is not far behind. A slew of star campaigners for the party has been strategically given bastion seats to hold rallies with an aim of swaying votes in BJP’s favour.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to make a speech at Chikkodi- a seat that the BJP is attempting to vest from the Congress, and Bagalkot- where the saffron party is facing a tough time retaining its foothold. BJP chief Amit Shah will hold road shows and rallies in Tumakuru and Hassan that have turned into seats of prestige for the JD(S) with HD Deve Gowda and Prajwal Revanna contesting respectively. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath is scheduled to address a rally in Mallikarjun Kharge’s bastion- Kalaburagi.
Advising the BJP, is a 45-member campaign committee led by R Ashok- who refers to it as a war room. “We have 34 teams of minimum 10 members in each constituency with specific jobs. social media, legal, CAs, logistics, campaign management, advertising, hospitality, trend etc,” said R Ashok, Convenor, Election Campaign Committee. Amit Shah’s handpicked team of professionals through the Association of Brilliant Minds continue to operate with a small team in Karnataka. “Daily reports are sent to national and state leadership. Trends, campaign impacts, feedback from rallies, airtime, advertising impacts, grassroots feedback to online and offline campaigns and recommendations are made,” said a BJP office-bearer.
The Congress, however, doesn’t have a war room at the state level but has a campaign panel headed by HK Patil. Delhi-based teams of party workers, data experts, analysts, tech-savvy volunteers are instead steering the campaign for the Congress. “All strategies are being worked up by a team led by AICC in Delhi. There isn’t a war room in Bengaluru but we have appointed a KPCC office-bearer as in-charge and another senior leader as an observer in each of the 28 seats,” said a KPCC office-bearer. The AICC has hired psephologists, data analysts, media observers and surveyors.
Incidentally, social media is the only decentralised component for all three parties this election. The BJP is banking on the NaMo App to keep its core voters glued in. The Congress has now collaborated with the social media team of the JD(S) to launch joint campaigns.
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