Political discourse gets lower by the day in pitched bypoll battle

There have been a series of personal attacks during campaigns and on Twitter

Though fierce attacks on the Opposition are nothing uncommon ahead of elections, the upcoming bypolls for two Assembly seats in the State have seen the political discourse getting lowered to the level of personal attacks.

On Sunday, the Congress described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an “illiterate” in a tweet and the BJP responded to it by calling Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as “Pappu”. However, soon after, KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar expressed regret over his party’s personal attack on the Prime Minister and asked the party to delete the tweet.

But the trend of indulging in personal attack got even worse with BJP State president Nalin Kumar Kateel on Tuesday calling Mr. Gandhi a “drug addict” and “drug peddler” citing unnamed media reports. Even as these remarks kicked up a political storm, the BJP continued its personal attack on Wednesday by accusing JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy of “bigamy”.