Karnataka Assembly poll in May will set the stage for the next General Election campaign
When a slip-of-the tongue or two make headlines and spark pop sociological treatises with body language experts weighing in to tell us how first the BJP president Amit Shah's and then his translator's gaffes (immediately corrected) during electioneering in Karnataka over the past couple of days show just how much pressure the BJP is under to win the State, we can safely dismiss the whole circus as the flotsam and jetsam of the chaotic ecology that is contemporary media in India. What is incontrovertible, however, is that the Karnataka Assembly poll to be held on May 12 — according to the Election Commission of India and not BJP/Congress/TV leaders, as it were — is hugely significant for both the ruling party and the Opposition. Not just because it is a major State but also to get a sense of what the contours of the campaign for three other big States (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) which are due to Assembly poll by the end of the year and the subsequent biggie, the lok Sabha election, will be.
Karnataka is in a sense a difficult one for the BJP despite it being the challenger, a situation in which it excels. For, the ‘try us' line has limited purchase given the electorate had given BS Yeddyurappa, who is once again the Chief Ministerial candidate for the BJP, the mandate in 2008 before he got embroiled in graft charges and had to be replaced by the party. The internecine battles in the Karnataka BJP which followed ensured that the Congress led by former JD-S heavyweight and HD Deve Gowda confidant K Siddaramaiah stormed to power in 2013. Now, with Yeddyurappa cleared of charges, Amit Shah having banged heads together in the party which has quelled dissent to a large extent and, most importantly, the party hoping to ride Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity post-2014, the BJP feels Karnataka is theirs for the taking though none is ignorant of the fact the Congress has a strong social coalition backing it. A win in Karnataka would not only set the stage for a concerted BJP bid to retain at least two out of the three States scheduled for year-end polls, it would also diminish the chances of the General Election being advanced by the ruling party to try and offset anti-incumbency in these States which have been ruled by the BJP for a while. Quite apart, of course, from setting the cat among the pigeons in the Opposition camp as far as the role of the Congress in any grand anti-BJP coalition is concerned.
Siddaramaiah, however, is no pushover. Not only has he unveiled and implemented a slew of social welfare schemes including providing nutritious, cooked food to the underprivileged through “Indira canteens”, he has also, albeit cynically, recommended that the politically powerful and economically empowered lingayat community, to which Yeddyurappa belongs, be recognised as a religious minority. His insistence on taking on his former mentor Deve Gowda in the Old Mysore regions where the Vokkaliga community from which the latter draws his support is dominant despite the Congress leadership in Delhi putting pressure on him not to divide the “secular” vote is also indicative of his assessment the JD-S, if push comes to shove, is likely to go the BJP way. And that he will be the first casualty if Deve Gowda's and his son HD Krishnaswamy are needed to make up a shortfall in a hung House situation. What he may not have calculated, however, is the consolidation of majority community votes with the lingayat decision giving traction to the BJP charge that he is indulging in “appeasement politics”. Plus, there's the Modi factor. Interesting times are in store.