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What shapes the electoral landscape in Karnataka
Will the Bharatiya Janata Party be able to fight off anti-incumbency, and also allegations of widespread corruption, in the state? Can the Congress eke out a rare win? And will the Janata Dal (S) still be relevant? .
Will the Bharatiya Janata Party be able to fight off anti-incumbency, and also allegations of widespread corruption, in the state? Can the Congress eke out a rare win? And will the Janata Dal (S) still be relevant? .
These are the three top-of-mind questions in Karnataka, where, the Election Commission of India announced on Wednesday, elections would take place on May 10, with the results being declared on May 13.
As of now, the BJP has 119 MLAs in the 224-member Karnataka assembly, followed by the Congress (75) and the JD(S) (28) . Two seats are vacant. In the 2018 election, the BJP had won 104, the Congress 80 and JD (S) 37. After BJP leader, B S Yediyurappa, failed to prove majority on floor of the house, JD (S)’ H D Kumaraswamy, became the chief minister with the support of the Congress. A year later, B S Yediyurappa returned as chief minister when 17 opposition MLAs resigned. But in August 2021, the BJP replaced Yediyurappa with Basavaraj Bommai, who has now also been named as chairman of the campaign committee .
On Wednesday, both the Congress and the BJP claimed they are election ready. Bommai said that the party is “every-ready” for elections and exuded confidence. Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah hoped that the election commission would conduct “free and fair” polls and expressed confidence in his party’s prospects.
The Congress has already announced candidates for 124 of the 224 assembly seats and said it would announce the remaining candidates by April 10. The party claims the momentum is with it and points to at least 10 former lawmakers from the BJP joining its ranks in the past two months.
Bommai said the BJP would announce its first list of candidates in first week of April, and added that most sitting MLAs are expected to get tickets. “We may not repeat the Gujarat formula of replacing many sitting MLAs as it could have an adverse impact. The first list will have most of the sitting MLAs,” said a senior BJP leader who asked not to be named.
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ELECTORAL ISSUES
The Congress has made corruption , alienation of minorities and mis-governance its major campaign issues. It is counting on the fact that the Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, is a Kannadiga (and a Dalit) to help.
In addition to the issues, the Congress has sought to revive AHINDA --- the Kannada acronym for minorities, backwards, dalits and tribals --- to counter a condolidation of the Hindu vote. These castes constitute about 39% of the state’s population but recent election results have shown that that they no longer vote as a block.
The BJP is relying on welfarism, consolidation of the Hindu vote, enhanced reservation for two dominant backward classes, Lingayats and Vokkaligas, Hindutva, and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Lingayats have traditionally backed Yediyuruppa ( Bommai is also a Linagayat but not as big leader as Yediyuruppa, local BJP leaders admit) and the attention the party has given Vokkaligas may make them move away from the JD (S), BJP leaders said. The Congress too is eyeing the Vokkaliga vote, with D K Shivakumar, the state Congress D K Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga, also being a chief ministerial candidate.
And the BJP, analysts say, is also looking to sweep old Mysuru and the coastal region of the state on the back of its Hindutva politics. . For the first time, the political wing of now banned Islamic fundamentalist group, the Popular Front of India, Secular Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has decided to contest all seats in the two regions.
“ Hindutva politics and Tipu issue could have impact on coastal and Mysuru regions. In rest of Karnataka, it may not have much impact as previous elections as there is no sizeable Muslim population there. The SDPI play in coastal regions will be interesting to watch,” said political expert A Naryana, referring to some BJP leaders targeting Tipu Sultan.
VOTE CHANGE
The BJP has seen a steady growth in the state, where it won only 18 of the 110 seats it contested in 1983. In 1994, it won 40 seats, and then 79 in 2004.
In 2007, Yediyuruppa became the state’s first BJP chief minister after the Congress broke an alliance with the JD (S), bringing down the H D Kumaraswamy government. A year later, the BJP won 110 seats, its highest ever. In 2013, the BJP faced a debacle after Yediyuruppa left the BJP and floated his own party; it won only 40 seats . In 2018, the BJP recovered ground with Yediyuruppa back in fold and won 104 seats. But it was the Congress and the JD(S) that formed the government first.
Amid the rise of the BJP, the Congress vote share has declined from over 50% in 1970s to 38.04% in 2018. Experts say that the JD (S) could fare poorly this time, reducing the polls to a bipolar affair. At the constituency level, it will be a close contest, they add.
Karnataka is a test for Congress as it is the first state assembly election since the disqualification of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Lok Sabha and the first where the party will likely target PM Modi over his perceived proximity to the Adani Group, accused of alleged fraud and stock manipulation by research firm Hindenburg.
A win for the BJP would protect its only beachhead in the peninsula, and help it mount a campaign in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Analysts point out that chief minister Bommai as well as other local leaders of the BJP have taken a hard Hindutva line as they jockey for leadership of the party in the state. A win, they add, may well strengthen Bommai’s hand.
ABOUT THE AUTHORChetan ChauhanChetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More
