bengaluru gone are the days when a high voter turnout was considered a mandate against the incumbent as the congress lost its stranglehold on the polscape newer stronger alternatives emergedon wednesday decoding the turnout in karnataka though high in percentage political experts suggested these figures do not show a trend for or against the incumbentwhile it is too early to call how the turnout will play a big role the thumb rule is that a high number of voters means either a wave in favour of the government or it could go against the incumbent they never show a single trend said political analyst narendar paniaccording to him voter mood is difficult to assess before results as it will only be known after the final numbers are compiledin 2019 for example there was a high turnout for the lok sabha elections and it was considered a possible mandate against the narendra modi government however it turned out to be in favour of modis team and increased the bjps vote sharehowever political parties are sceptical about turnout as a factor the bjp is worried about the en bloc voting by minorities and the congress expects a higher turnout to favour it the worrying trend observed by the bjp is the exceedingly high number of muslims voting it meansthere may be a counterconsolidation against us said a senior party functionarycongress party working president salim ahmed says that despite increasing awareness about voting and the partys strong pitch to remove the bjp government its still not enough though we expected a higher turnout the voting pattern suggests that congress may benefit from it we expect to cross the 125seat mark he saidfor jds the bigger worry is that despite the high turnout in its old mysuru bastion it may either consolidate its vokkaliga votebank or end up assisting the congress while were certain the high turnout in rural areas will benefit us its possible the congress may also reap rich dividends said jds mlc ka thippeswamy