‘Herd’ this? After smiles and tears, cattle enter campaign discourse
BENGALURU: The tone of the political discourse is becoming coarser every election time. Words such as enemy and cattle are easily tossed into the campaign speeches. Cutting across the party lines, leaders are busy making personal allegations against each other and are hardly discussing issues related to voters.
Considering the crucial bypolls in 15 assembly constituencies on December 5, netas are doing roadshows and addressing rallies and calling each other names.
At Chincholi, Congress leader Siddaramaiah said the saffron party has started a bad culture of buying elected representatives, just as one buys cattle in the market, in order to get the numbers in the Legislative Assembly. Last week there was attack and counter-attack between Health Minister Sriramulu and Siddaramaiah. This continued for a week, then, it degenerated into personal attacks.
Smiles and tears too are thrown into speeches. A couple of days back, Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy knew only crying at public places. Not to be outdone, Kumaraswamy ridiculed that Sadananda Gowda always showed his teeth, meaning he is always smiling whatever the situation. Adding to this, BJP leader Sriramulu attacked Kumaraswamy and said he (HDK) had done nothing for the people of Karnataka other than staying at a star hotel.
And the discourse turned deadly when minister K S Eshwarappa remarked that nobody knew how many years Siddaramaiah would live. From speeches, the discourse has gone hi-tech with netas indulging in video wars. The BJP Karnataka Twitter handle posted an old video of Siddaramaiah when he was with the JDS where he is talking about a Congress-mukt Karnataka. “BJP has stooped low to conquer by posting an old video. We too have videos of those disqualified MLAs who spoke against the BJP. Should we also post them,’’ asked a senior Congress leader.
Prof Harish Ramaswamy, political analyst, said, “It is unfortunate that the political discourse has touched a new low. Instead of talking about their candidates or what the candidates will do for the people if they are elected, these political leaders are indulging in personal attacks. It is high time the people raised their voice against such language, it’s not a tamasha they are watching.”