The BJP has to wait for another four days before the party's main mascot, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, goes to Karnataka to help step up its campaign against the appeal of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Modi is expected to address 15 rallies before the May 12 election. That’s when the campaign is expected to run several notches higher, and even shriller with the Congress too ratcheting up the rhetoric.
Modi, however, started by addressing his party men in Karnataka through his NaMo app on Thursday.
This was his first address, though only meant for BJP leaders and cadre, after the elections were announced. In his pep talk, he hit out at the Congress and even rubbished the recent opinion polls, which gave the incumbent Congress government an edge.
“The well-wishers of the Congress party are propagating falsehood and talking about a hung Assembly. Similar talk was even there before the 2014 elections. This was nothing but a conspiracy to disillusion the people who wanted change. People of Karnataka want to go with the Centre," Modi said in his talk.
Modi made development the centrepiece of his address, thus hinting that BJP will only try to counter Siddaramaiah through this issue in the coming days.
The chief minister's recent order of giving separate religion status to the politically important Lingayat community had made the fight difficult for the BJP. Lingayats in the past few elections had supported the BJP. The saffron party had made it clear that it does not support separate religion tag for the Lingayats as it means dividing the Hindu community.
“If you analyse the last few elections, you will realise how few political parties have indulged only in dividing societies on religious lines. They exploit emotions of some community before elections and forget them after the elections,” Modi said in his address, a day before he leaves for his China tour.
“We have a three-pronged agenda for Karnataka: development, fast-paced development, all-round development. The BJP has given all its focus and importance to the development of the state,” Modi promised, as he also gave numbers to argue that the Congress government has not been able to utilise funds and failed on several counts.
In an oblique reference to the Cambridge Analytica controversy, the prime minister said, “We may hear things which might discourage us, others might misuse data, involve foreign agencies and take wrong methods, but not the BJP. Congress uses lies and false propaganda.”
“Congress is only involved in dynastic politics, spreading lies and dividing people on the grounds of caste. The country’s politics cannot be purified till the time the country is not liberated from the Congress culture,” Modi said, as he added his party would gain a majority in the state elections.
The battleground has shifted to Bengaluru where all the senior BJP leaders and ministers are camping. Apart from Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, other leaders who will hold rallies include Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.