With Karnataka win, Congress gets a template for other Assembly polls

THE WEALTH OF THE POOR: If BJP spent eight years trying to displace Congress as party for the poor, Congress' Karnataka triumph could help it reclaim that perch. Archis Mohan writes

The Congress party’s comprehensive Karnataka Assembly election win has armed it with an electoral template it is putting to use in Madhya Pradesh (MP) — the only Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state of the five poll-bound states in November.
 
The Congress campaign in MP will focus on those affected the worst, across all castes, by inflation and a lack of gainful work and promise Rahul Gandhi’s “five guarantees”.
 
But the Karnataka win, evident in the four days it took after the election results to agree on a power-sharing formula between Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar, brings the challenge