As Karnataka goes to polls on Wednesday in the high stakes Assembly elections for both the ruling BJP and Opposition Congress, the grand old party’s bid to ‘play’ the elder brother under the umbrella of Opposition combine remains crucial to crack the Modi’s juggernaut in the Lok Sabha elections at the same time next year.
While several camps from the Opposition front led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his counterparts in West Bengal, Telangana and Delhi – Mamata Banerjee, K Chandrshekhar Rao, Arvind Kejriwal and other top leaders like Sharad Pawar and Askhilesh Yadav have initiated the talks for unity, the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi led 4,000 km long Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and the party has been seeking to weigh upon its own performance in Karnataka to bargain hard to lead from the front. In a message to galvanise Opposition unity further, Mamata on Monday stated that voters of Karnataka should not vote for BJP but for a stable government albeit she did not name Congress.
Mamata who earlier toed a different line to go without the Congress and align with the likes of Akhilesh Yadav, was convinced by Nitish Kumar that the only solution to defeat Narendra Modi is to keep the Congress within.
Nitish also met Akhilesh to pitch the point. Earlier, Kejriwal and the Congress took an extra step to bridge the gap as Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge personally called the Delhi Chief Minister to express solidarity when the latter was summoned by ED for questioning in the Delhi excise scam.
Karnataka Assembly polls are being considered the first of the four “semi-finals” between the BJP and the Congress before the 2024 general elections. The calculation of gaining sympathy factor for the grand old party post the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha and as well as his 4,000 km foot march would also be put to test in the high-stakes contest.
Four assembly elections -- Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh -- are scheduled for this year in which the BJP and the Congress are in a direct contest and they would set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The contest in Karnataka is largely between the BJP and the Congress but JD(S) in the past has proven to be a crucial cog in the political wheel.