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Cong’s anti-graft push in Karnataka reaping rewards, early trends show
A few electoral constants have characterised the Karnataka elections over the past few decades. For one, the BJP has never secured a majority in the state assembly polls. Second, after 1985, no ruling party has secured a majority in the subsequent assembly polls.
Early trends during the counting of votes across 224 seats in Karnataka on Saturday morning indicate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) showed the Congress taking a decisive lead, past the 113-seat halfway mark, banking on its strategy of raising local corruption issues and providing “social justice” as an alternative during a pitched campaign.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its key opponent and the incumbent party in the state, appeared to claw back some of the losses in the phase of the counting process, though it remained well beyond the magic number, and less than the 104 seats it won in 2018.
The Janata Dal (Secular), which often plays kingmaker in the southern state and is fighting for relevance in these elections, got off to a slow start, with most trends showing numbers well below the 37 seats it bagged during the last elections.
To be sure, these are extremely early trends, with just a fraction of the votes counted. The numbers likely to firm up over the next couple of hours.
A few electoral constants have characterised the Karnataka elections over the past few decades.
For one, the BJP has never secured a majority in the Karnataka assembly polls.
Secondly, after 1985, no ruling party has secured a majority in the subsequent assembly polls.
Crucially, electors in Karnataka exhibit separate patterns in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. For instance, in 1985, when Ramakrishna Hedge of the Janata Party won with a decisive majority, less than a year after voters gave the Congress a clean sweep in the state.
The BJP had two clear strategies in this election.
First, its campaign revolved around the personality and charisma of its central leaders, with the party trying to cement its Lingayat vote through former chief minister BS Yediyurappa and his predecessor and incumbent Basvaraj Bommai.
Ever since the BJP came to power in the state after the collapse of the Congress-JDS coalition government in 2019, it has tried to set the political agenda in the state.
However, initial successes notwithstanding, the state government appeared to be on the backfoot. Chief minister Bommai, who was elevated to the position after the BJP imposed its retirement rule on Yediyurappa in 2021, failed to assert himself, leading to factionalism within the party and cliques emerging within the government. This, consequently, kept the state government from expanding the cabinet and reshuffling portfolios.
Such was the fear of factionalism that the party retained a bulk of the sitting MLAs and retired a few veterans such as former CM Jagadish Shettar, who rebelled and is now contesting on a Congress ticket.
From the party’s campaign strategy, it appeared that the BJP central leadership realised anti-incumbency and tried to place Bommai government record on the back-burner and focussed on its central government.
So much so that the campaign hovered around Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah with all state leaders except Yediyurappa being in the background.
The BJP also failed to counter the Congress’ “40% commission government” charge effectively for months. It only responded when Prime Minister Narendra Modi countered this with a charge that the “corruption in the Congress was 85%.”
Further, a cascade of corruption charges appeared to dent what little defence the state leadership tried to provide. For instance, the BJP was on the defensive when the son of a BJP MLA was caught by the Lokayukta in a case of seeking monetary favours for a contract. The party was not able to even suspend the MLA, though he was denied a ticket.
If that was not enough a tweet by the state government on agreement with a Taiwan based IT company establishing its unit in Bengaluru will create many jobs, was contradicted by the said company through a statement saying no decision had been taken. However, the same company confirmed an agreement in neighbouring Telangana.
The Congress was able to reap most political dividends from the Amul-Nandini controversy, as the campaign began to take shape.
Most milk producers for Amul are in the Old Mysuru and Central Karnataka regions, which have been JD (S) and BJP strongholds respectively. The trends show that the issue had some impact there.
The BJP’s bid to make the denial of 4% reservation to the Muslims a poll issue also did not work as the party would have expected with the state government assuring the Supreme Court that the withdrawal of the quota for Muslims would not be implemented for the moment. This raised questions on the party’s campaign to raise 4% reservations for Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Also, increasing reservations just a week before the elections were announced on March 29 appears to have cast some doubts among the electorate whether the party was serious about increasing the reservation benefit.
From the early trends, it appears that the BJP is doing better than most opinion polls but lower than what the exit polls predicted. The party is hinging on getting close to 80 seats and for the Congress it appears it will cross the majority mark.
Both the Congress and the BJP have refrained from announcing a chief ministerial candidate on account of their unique internal compulsions.
The Congress, which appears to be heading towards becoming the largest party may have a challenge to choose as chief minister candidate as both former CM Siddaramaiah, a Kuruba, and state Congress chief DK Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga, are strong contenders for the position.
