The Congress party is more likely than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to emerge victorious in the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections, said analysts Sanjay Kumar and Sandeep Shastri on May 5 in Bengaluru at Moneycontrol's Policy Next - The Big Karnataka Resurgence summit.
However, Kumar and Shastri said things could change by the time the southern state votes on May 10.
"If elections are held tomorrow, certainly Congress has a decisive edge over BJP," said Sanjay Kumar, professor and co-director of Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.
"I get a sense Congress is ahead of BJP by 5-6 percent at this moment. This 5-6 percent (lead) may not give a huge majority to Congress. This might give Congress 116-120 seats, not more than that," Kumar added.
The Karnataka assembly has a total of 224 seats.
Sandeep Shastri, National Coordinator of the Lokniti network, concurred with Kumar.
"If elections are to be held today, the Congress seems to have a nose ahead. But it is not a very long nose. It's a very short nose. And four days is a long time (for things to change)," Shastri said.
The Karnataka state elections are seen as a key event ahead of next year's Lok Sabha elections. The incumbent BJP, Congress, Janata Dal (Secular), and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have looked to garner votes through a variety of means, with corruption being one of the key issues.
However, according to CSDS' Kumar, corruption is not a voting issue for the people of Karnataka as they don't see a difference between either Congress or BJP when it comes to the issue. Similarly, Kumar was dismissive of unemployment and inflation as issues that could decide how the state votes.
"If I look at the electoral verdict of the last five years, emotive issues...have started dominating the election scene," Kumar said.
"The issues on the ground have very little connect with how people are voting. People are getting swayed with emotional issues, issues of identity. Some issues have come into play in the last couple of days," he added.
"Are we witnessing a tipping point in the election campaign with the 'Jai Bajrang Bali' chant being echoed by both the BJP and the Congress? Have the development issues been truly pushed to the back-burner?" Sandeep Shastri tweeted on May 5.
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