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Candidate selection: BJP’s hurried experiment goes awry
Expression of discontent that the BJP has been witnessing in Karnataka is certainly more than what is considered ‘normal’ and is symptomatic of certain deeper currents in the party
In poll-bound Karnataka, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has been at its wits’ end with the rebellion that erupted after it announced the candidates for 212 of 224 constituencies for which the elections will be held on May 10. Expression of discontent by aspirants who fail to get the party ticket is a common phenomenon in all parties during every election. However, what the BJP has been witnessing in the state is certainly more than what is considered ‘normal’ and is symptomatic of certain deeper currents in the party.
The BJP this time tried to create an impression that its list of candidates would be full of surprises with many new faces, breaking the status quo. However, finally when the much-awaited list was announced, it belied the initial expectations. There were new faces, and 16 sitting legislators were denied ticket, but these changes were more reflective of the serious limitations that the BJP has in Karnataka to experiment, rather than its strength. The party seems to be in a hurry to get adventurous in a state where it suffers from serious structural weaknesses and deep factional fissures.
On record, the candidates’ list has many fresh faces, but most of them have been fielded from those constituencies where the party lost last time or holds little hope of winning this time too. This is the case in almost entire Old Mysore region. Among those counted as new faces are also those fielded in constituencies where the sitting MLAs had announced their retirement (for example: Kundapur in Udupi district) or where the incumbents were caught in serious allegations making it difficult for the party to nominate them again (for example: Puttur in Dakshina Kananda district). Also among the new faces are two candidates who allegedly faced serious criminal cases, and a former bureaucrat who was arrested in a multi-crore financial scam. The party has justified their inclusion on the ground of ‘caste balance’ in the list.
Similarly, while much has been claimed about dropping sitting MLAs, the reality is different. In none of these cases one can see the party taking the risk on a principled stand. Some of the dropped MLAs are from those constituencies where the party is sure of winning as those in coastal Karnataka, or from those constituencies where the party had little chance of getting re-elected.
The entire ‘bold new experiment’ that the party’s media managers tried to sell has thus largely fallen flat but what is more interesting is the scale and intensity of the rebellion that even this limited experiment has led to in the party. Neither the BJP nor any other party in Karnataka has seen the kind of a backlash that the BJP has been witnessing since the names of the party nominees went public. The saga of protests, resignations, defections, and threat to contest as rebel candidates continues to rattle the party leadership. Supporters of some of the disgruntled leaders went to the extent of pulling down Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s portraits and burning the party flags. At least six party MLAs, including former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi have resigned.
The rebellion has exposed a serious contradiction in the way that the BJP is expanding in Karnataka. The party, despite its nationwide claims of being a disciplined party, has expanded in Karnataka so far by accepting disgruntled, power-hungry leaders from the Congress and the Janata Dal over the years. These leaders who have no ideological affinity with the party are naturally unwilling to cooperate with the BJP high command’s plans for bold experiments. The party engineered large scale defections from the Opposition to mobilize numbers to secure the governments it formed both in 2008 and 2019, having failed to win a majority.
The state BJP has also nurtured leadership among several radical Hindutva activists who carry out the party’s communal agenda on the streets. These leaders, some of whom have serious cases pending against them, are now demanding their pound of flesh by seeking nomination to contest the Assembly elections. The BJP is dependent heavily on these migrants and street-level leaders who make the bulk of its middle-level fleet across the state. Against this backdrop of undisciplined growth, when the leadership tried a small measure of ‘disciplined’ ticket distribution, it has expectedly backfired.
The BJP’s plans to experiment in candidate selection also had to reconcile with the fact that the party is heavily dependent on former chief minister B S Yediyurappa without whom it cannot count the support of dominant Lingayat community. Old-horse Yediyurappa with his own network of leaders and workers, not speak of his kith and kin, bargained hard to ensure sufficient representation of his supporters in the list. In the meantime, the Opposition turncoats who had joined the BJP under ‘Operation Kamala’ also emerged a strong bargaining group within the BJP, who wanted the ticket for themselves and for a few of their supporters. The strongest voice in this group was that of Ramesh Jarkiholi from Belagavi district in northern Karnataka, who virtually secured ticket for the defectors and their supporters. The party had to mostly yield to his pressure, considering his clout to influence results in neighbouring seats but it has led to the exit of former deputy chief minister Lakshman Savadi. Jarkiholi, a former minister, had to resign following allegations of his involvement in a sleaze CD case.
Finally, the list that has emerged is a compromise, which has created discontent in every faction. What is more glaring is that the image of an all-powerful high command which has taken direct charge of the elections in Karnataka has not helped much for the party to have its way in the candidate selection or to manage the rebellion. A section of the party leadership is apparently unperturbed as it believes that it has been able to build a base of supporters who would vote for the BJP symbol irrespective of the candidate or the presence of a rebel. Why then the defectors and those facing serious charges found a place in the list at the cost of loyalists and those with clean record such as former chief minister Jagadish Shettar is another intriguing element in the BJP’s botched-up experiment.
(Views expressed by the author are personal and not necessarily of the publisher. The author is a professor of public policy and governance at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)
