Karnataka elections: Will Congress not get a majority due to bad campaign?

The Congress leads are inching closer to that all important halfway mark of 112, with ETV Kannada results showing the party ahead in 107 seats. There is a no clear second spot as yet, with the BJP and JDS battling it out with leads in 42 and 41 seats respectively.

Speaking to CNN-IBN, political analyst Sandeep Shastri said, “The ground reality is that Congress is winning. They could have done better. But they have messed it up by a lacklustre campaign and choosing the wrong candidates. They have a huge opportunity to come to power with a majority but they might blow it.”

However, according to Mohandas Pai there is no reason to believe that this is a positive vote for the Congress.

“Votes have been split. Corruption scandals have led people to reject Yeddyurappa and the BJP. People should not think that it is a positive vote for the Congress,” he said.

But there are factors that have ruined the BJP’s prospects as well, said historian Ramachandra Guha.

“There has been complete collapse of infrastructure. Bajrang Dal and fringe Hindu elements - who have also been instrumental in targeting a young Muslim journalist for publishing reports about the involvement of right wing parties in terror cases - are also factors that have affected the BJP’s chance,” he said.

“The short term tragedy is that if Congress wins (which is most likely), the very next day Congress will be reduced to jokers because they will claim it is Rahul Gandhi’s victory,” he said.