Mangalore is not Bangalore. And Bangalore is not Karnataka. Which means that the episodes that made lurid national and international headlines may not have the decisive effect on the contest for 28 Lok Sabha seats that rationalists might expect.

If the Bharatiya Janata Party improves on its present 18 seats, it will be largely because of Congress disarray. Bungling by Congressmen, who now have seven MPs, has allowed the arch enemy, already entrenched among Lingayats who comprise 16 or 22 per cent of the population (depending on who you believe), to make major inroads into the rival Vokkaliga camp.

Caste and community loom large in a state where even a Muslim candidate like the Congress’s Saleem Ahmed lies prone on the ground for a bovine Silent Grandpa (Mookappa Ajja), the Siddarameshwar temple’s holy cow, to plant a hoof on his back in benediction. Bangalore is another world, and a plump girl whose motorbike screeched to a halt by my car laughed at the idea of the Karnataka Raksha Vedika or some other religion-driven male chauvinist gang objecting to her hip-hugging jeans. “If they object they object!” she retorted and revved away.

Twinges of unease at manifestations of bigotry by what is called the “Hindutva Taliban” is an urban phenomenon. Protests like the “Reclaim the Night” programme recall the exclusiveness of Delhi’s candle-lit procession after the Mumbai attacks. Villagers are more worried about 318 peasant suicides.

Also more relevant to the political battle is the deftness with which Rajnath Singh hijacked the Vokkaliga bastion of the Adi Chunchunagiri Mutt, which H.D. Deve Gowda, the “humble farmer” who reached the stars, developed in the eighties. No member of the Gowda clan was present when the BJP president inaugurated the Mutt’s Varanasi chapter.

That the clan, or what comes to much the same thing, the Janata Dal (Secular), with three MPs, turned a deaf ear to Congress wooing also helps the BJP in its first beachhead outside the cow belt. Sonia Gandhi met the rising son of Karnataka politics, Deve Gowda’s son, H.D. Kumaraswamy, but to no avail. His father’s vision of regaining the Holy Grail that was his once led to Tumkur and the third front.

Even without this rebuff, the Congress is a divided house. Its last few chief ministers are not remembered with respect. Mysore’s Maharaja Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar might have helped but has wasted his goodwill. Sonia Gandhi’s March visit to launch the campaign in Davangere merely papered over cracks.

Despite briefly appearing on the platform, C.K. Jaffer Sharief is sulking at not getting the constituency he wanted. R.V. Deshpande, president of the state unit, is piqued because his son got no ticket at all. With the daring of someone with nothing to lose, S.M. Krishna, also denied a seat, demands “internal elections” in the Congress.

The young whose hopes soared with Rahul Gandhi’s tour last year felt badly let down when tickets went to battle-scarred veterans. Krishna Byregowda is one of the few exceptions, but with the BJP’s Ananth Kumar seeking re-election for a fifth time from Bangalore South, the US-trained Congressman might be something of a sacrificial lamb.

Not that the BJP is without its share of troubles. Despite its overall lead, few candidates are of recognisable stature. The party feels hamstrung because of wobbling by its central leadership. Ananth Kumar is at odds with chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, known as the “dictator”, whose whirlwind tours focus most on son Raghavendra’s maiden campaign in Shimoga.

Energy minister K.S. Eshwarappa admits his party’s obsession with caste.

The BJP’s remarkably successful Operation Lotus to persuade Congress and JD(S) politicians to turn their coats can create piquant situations. No one was surprised to start with when home minister V.S. Acharya landed in a Congress meeting. But pandemonium broke out as he began berating the Congress, and realising his mistake, the minister scrambled into his car and fled in such haste that his security men were left behind. Generous Congressmen lent them a car.

Karnataka bristles with such quirks though there are no major issues. It has the least number of criminal aspirants. It also has the most crorepatis — 45. Every fourth contestant is a crorepati. “And that’s going by their own admissions only!” one is told.

Six former chief ministers (including that man for all se-asons, S. Bangarappa) are in the fray. The Internet is a major canvassing instrument. Each party accuses the other of fielding several candidates with the same name just to confuse voters.

Living up to the message of the Bengali saying about Hindus converting to Islam gorging on beef, B.D. Chandre Gowda, who saved Indira Gandhi by vacating the Chikmagalur seat, stresses he has joined the Bharatiya (he pronounces it Baratiya) Janata Party. “Baratiya means all-India, not Hindu!”

Having travelled in the other direction, H.T. Sangliana, the Congress candidate from Bangalore Central, uses similar language to mean the opposite. “We have one identity, an Indian identity,” he says, stressing that “religion must be kept within the confines of the home and not (demonstrated) in the streets.”

Sangliana, whom the BJP expelled for voting for the UPA because, he says, he supports the 123 Agreement, is a Mizo Christian whom the Indian Police Service posted to Karnataka 36 years ago.

The Congress supporters who line the road as we ride his open estate car are not as rumbustious as the BJP cadres when we repeat the exercise with Chandre Gowda. But though the BJP has the edge, men like Chandre Gowda within the party and symbols of national integration like Sangliana outside may temper its excesses.

The Congress attracted a higher vote than the BJP (36.82 per cent against 34.77 per cent) in 2004. How that will translate into seats after delimitation remains to be seen but that bedrock of secular support will probably ensure that despite Mangalore, Karnataka doesn’t descend into a saffron fortress where churches are burned and Christians persecuted.