Namecalling by the campaigners in Karnataka has made the ambience of the election vicious and ugly
Persons occupying top positions in the country and who are leading lights in the public domain should be role models for the people, especially for the youth. But the slanging match which is going on in Karnataka as part of electioneering to the assembly tells the world how an election should not be fought and the decency to be maintained during the campaigning.
Instead of ideology and development agenda, what we hear from a State known for its beautiful literature, music and brave soldiers is the choice of abuse by the main protagonists. Last week saw D K Shivakumar, the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress accompanied by his sidekick filing a police complaint against one of the star campaigners of the BJP, the main challenger. The run-up to the election saw many prominent figures of the BJP crossing over to the Congress protesting over the denial of tickets to them to fight the polls. Those who crossed over include a former chief minister and a former deputy chief minister. For these leaders, membership in the legislative assembly is the minimum requirement to serve the people.
The name-calling by the campaigners has made the ambience of the election vicious and ugly. An octogenarian leader, who should have confined himself to his palatial bungalow pampering his grand and great-grandchildren, is out in the scorching sunlight showering the opponents with terms and phrases which are alien to the organisation which he leads. The response from the other side is equally deplorable, reminding one of the wordy duel between two characters in a famous short story. While the more aggressive of the two addresses the rival with grubby and nauseating terms, the latter retaliates by calling the former names of fruits like apple, tomato, orange, guava etc. At the end of the slanging match, one of the bystanders asked the latter why he did he address the rival with names of fruits while the former had used only manky terms, the answer he gave was interesting. “The gentleman told me the kind of things he consumes and I said the materials I use.” It is not known whether these leaders have heard this story or not.
Election campaigns should be a learning process not only for the voters but for the contesters too. The focus should be on why the State continues to lag in infrastructure and what prevented the rulers from opening more and more hospitals, schools, and institutes of higher learning. The debate should have pinpointed the lacuna and failures of those who administered the State for decades. Name-calling has no space in this festival of democracy. Politicians should not turn this festival into a cacophony. Campaign meetings are the ideal classrooms for the citizens to know about the success and failure of democratic values. After listening to the speeches delivered by the leaders, the public should be able to choose the right person for the right job.
No purpose would be served by name-calling and the use of abusive language. In Kerala, there is a temple at Kodungallur where the devotees assemble once a year and sing POORAPPATTU, songs made of filthy words that the common man would never sing even if he is all alone. If the reports coming from Karnataka are to be believed, the campaign speeches are thousands of fathoms deeper than POORAPPATTU. Our politicians are not setting a precedent for the youngsters. Let the voters in the State elect a party with an absolute majority so that we don’t have to wait with bated breaths to watch live “crossing over” of MLAs and resort politics which were the hallmark of Karnataka politics. God save Democracy.
