For obvious reasons, Karnataka Assembly elections have become extremely important. Voting is just around 20 days away, and it is pertinent to ensure that voters are empowered to make an enlightened choice. In the pre-2000 era, people used to routinely say that post-acquisition of power, all parties govern in a similar fashion. The performance of most parties in governance used to be almost equally good or equally bad.
But post-2000, the situation changed. Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee introduced ‘Good Governance’ as an important factor to be considered while comparing the performance of competing parties. Later, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm, ‘Politics of Performance’ entered the political lexicon of India.