Karnataka only saving grace for the BJP in the South

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Karnataka emerged as the only saving grace for the BJP. It won 18 of the 28 seats while in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, its allies had to face severe drubbing.

A Vajpayee wave aided by a pronounced anti-incumbency load of the SM Krishna Government fuelled the BJP to notch its best-ever performance in the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, the party's only saving grace in the south.

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In fact, the BJP had charted a course to make Karnataka its "gateway" to the south, and the party seemed to have succeeded in good measure but it was not roses all the way.

While in the Lok Sabha polls, the saffron party reigned supreme bagging 18 seats of the total 28, in the assembly elections it emerged as the single largest party with a tally of 79 in the 224-member House, falling short of numbers.

But BJP's excellent performance in Parliamentary elections, in which the verdict was clearly in favour of the party, hasn't come as a surprise. Most expected it to do well.

The BJP added 11 more seats to its kitty of the 1999 figure of seven, and has sent a large contingent to Delhi.

"Karnataka has been often described as gateway for the BJP in the south. Now (after the elections), it has been so," state BJP Chief HN Ananth Kumar said. "It's heartening that BJP has got 18 seats in Karnataka. This in itself is a testimony for the support we have enlisted."

It was a role of reversal for the Congress, which managed only eight seats this time compared to 18 in 1999.

The other two seats were bagged by the JD(S) - former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda in Hassan and M Shivanna in Chamarajnagar.

The undercurrent against the Congress was strong. Even Congress veteran and former union railway minister Jaffar Sharief, who has been winning from Bangalore North since 1977 - except in 1996 when he was denied ticket - fell by the wayside.

Sharief was accounted for by former IPS Officer HT Sangliana, who had joined the BJP a few days before the polls were declared, by a margin of more than 20,000 votes.

Other prominent losers from the Congress side included Margaret Alva in Kanara, where the BJP candidate Ananthkumar Hegde's winning margin was more than 1.7 lakh, former Chief Minister M Veerappa Moily (Mangalore) and scion of Mysore Royal family Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar who, in fact, finished third in Mysore.

On the personal front, it was a mixed bag for Deve Gowda.

While, in a stunning result, he lost to television journalist and political novice Tejaswini Sriramesh by nearly 1.17 lakh votes in Kanakapura, his home constituency of Hassan did not let him down and he emerged victorious from there by more than 1.8 lakh votes.

Former union minister V Srinivasa Prasad, who broke away from the company of George Fernandes and joined forces with Gowda, played a key role in the victory of the party nominee in Chamarajnagar, where he wields considerable influence.

But the clear loser in the Parliamentary elections in Karnataka is no doubt the Congress and the Chief Minister SM Krishna openly admitted that his party has been rejected by the people, and blamed successive drought as the major reason for the party's rout, especially in assembly elections.

An interesting contest, keenly anticipated for its outcome, was Shimoga, where Karnataka strongman and former Chief Minister S Bangarappa, who joined the BJP weeks before the elections from the Congress, sought re-election. As expected, he won there, with a margin of more than 46,000 votes.

The winners from the BJP included Ananth Kumar (Bangalore South) and former union minister of state for railways Basanagouda Patil Yatnal (Bijapur).

BJP, expected to do well in coastal and northern parts of the state, made inroads into other regions as well and even put Bellary, a Congress bastion since 1952 and from where it had not lost any election since then, in its bag.

BJP's G Karunakara Reddy won the Bellary constituency, which shot into the national limelight after the Congress President Sonia Gandhi chose to contest from there in the 1999 elections and the high-profile duel with BJP's Sushma Swaraj that followed.