Bagalkot bypoll campaign focussed on attacks on individual leaders, leaving out real issues

The Bagalkot bypoll campaign prioritized personal attacks over crucial local issues like water scarcity and farmer welfare.

As public campaigning for the bypolls ends on Tuesday, it seems personal attacks by leaders dominated the fortnight-long campaign, pushing the real issues to the background.

Among all the 31 districts of Karnataka, Bagalkot has the lowest annual average rainfall of 450 mm. It also suffers from flash floods across the two banks of the Krishna, whenever there is sudden water release from Maharashtra. It suffers from the long pending problem of mass migration of rural farm labourers. Farmers associations have been complaining about inadequate compensation for land losers in the Upper Krishna Project and the delay in increasing the height of the Almatti dam.

However, such issues did not dominate the campaign. Some leaders like Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.K. Patil have blamed the Union government for the delay in notifying the UKP third phase in the gazette.

Mr. Siddaramaiah and most Congress leaders targeted the BJP nominee Viranna Charantimath’s perceived behaviour towards the common folk. “He is arrogant and short tempered. He has no time to meet the rural poor. He does not allow the common voters to enter his house. Why elect such a person who maintains a distance?”, the Chief Minister said in his first campaign rally.

Mr. Shivakumar made similar remarks and asked the people to elect Umesh Meti, who has the image of an accessible leader.

Mallikarjun Charantimath, Mr. Viranna Charantimath’s younger brother and Congress leader, accused him of amassing wealth in the name of building an educational institution.