A few months before Karnataka votes in the assembly elections, the state BJP is scaling up its attack on the ruling Congress. The latest ammunition is poor law and order in the state, as the BJP claims. Last week, Deepak Rao, a 28-year-old BJP worker in Mangaluru of Dakshina Kannada district, was killed. Hours later, TR Basheer, a food stall owner, was attacked and killed in what the police consider to be a retaliatory killing.