Interest in the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka has been kept alive by the implementation of five “guarantee” schemes, a pre-poll promise made by the Congress in the run-up to the Karnataka Assembly election in 2023, which seems to be countering the “Modi’s development” narrative of the BJP on ground.
Amidst a drought across the State, the worst in four decades, and a crisis in agriculture in the hinterland, 14 seats in southern Karnataka’s Old Mysore and coastal regions are going to the polls in the second phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 26. Across the State, the grand old party managed to win just one seat out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in 2019 as the BJP swept 25 seats riding on a perceived “Modi wave” despite the then Congress-Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) alliance being in power in the State.
