With Congress registering an impressive victory in Karnataka, BJP has lost its lone bastion in south India. Kestur Vasuki analyses the Assembly election result and how it could affect national politics
The BJP’s humiliating defeat in Karnataka has raised more questions than answers. How could the party which registered such a spectacular victory in 2008 be reduced to rubble five years laterIJ Will the BJP be able to make a comeback in the 2014 lok Sabha electionIJ Or, is it all over for the party as far as its southern dreams are concernedIJ
It is pertinent to note that former Chief Minister and lingayat leader BS Yeddyurappa, who built the party from scratch in the State, has now become one of the main reasons why the BJP is in such a mess. Apart from the lingayat vote split, the consolidation of backward classes in favour of the Congress has sounded the death knell for the party. In Karnataka politics, two steams of voters — backward classes and dominant communities — decide the fate of a political party. This election has seen the consolidation of the two groups in favour of the Congress, thus eroding the BJP’s base. Had the BJP not retained some support in urban centres, it could not have even got the face-saving 40 seats — which it holds jointly with HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular). The party has won 13 out of 28 constituencies in Bangalore urban.
In 2008, many left leaders among Dalits formed a political platform in the BJP to defeat the Congress. The division of the left and the Right among Dalits has traditionally been exploited by different political parties, particularly the Congress. In 2008, however, the attitude of the left Dalits changed favourably towards the BJP. likewise, lingayats backed Yeddyurappa to bring the BJP to power. Five years down the line, these two support bases have eroded considerably, causing a major electoral debacle for the party.
No wonder, the BJP not only lost its strongholds of coastal and Mumbai-Karnataka districts but also Hyderabad-Karnataka and Central Karnataka (which are regarded as the hotbed of lingayat politics). Moderate faces in the BJP now feel that the hardcore Hindutva agenda pursued by some leaders in coastal districts of Mangalore and Udupi has eroded the party’s vote base in the region.
An analysis of the voting pattern clearly indicates that Yeddyurappa’s KJP has become a major spoiler for the BJP, which has got just below 20 per cent of total votes. By garnering about 10 per cent votes, the KJP has spelt doom for the ruling BJP and catapulted the Congress to power in Karnataka. This time the Congress has improved its tally to 121 from 80 in 2008, and secured a handsome 36.55 per cent vote share in the Assembly election. “We have lost more than 30 constituencies because of the KJP,” confesses a BJP insider.
Battered in Bellary and coastal districts, particularly Dakshina Kannada, besides yielding considerable ground in other parts of the State, the BJP is clearly devastated. In around 100 constituencies, Yeddyurappa’s KJP and the BSR Congress of B Sriramulu chipped away its votes in no small measure. The KJP and the BSR Congress could win just 10 seats, but the damage they have done to the BJP is immense.
The anti-incumbency factor and incessant infighting within the BJP leading to as many as three Chief Ministers in five years, coupled with the perception that some ministers were deeply involved in corruption, added to the party’s woes. The BJP’s first Government in the South was thus seen in poor light, overshadowing some of the development works it had done in the past five years.
It is amply clear that Yeddyurappa vowed to demolish the BJP for what it did to him — and he succeeded in his endeavour. The Congress didn’t have to do much as disarray in Opposition ranks was certainly to its disadvantage. As for the JD(S), it could not become the kingmaker, but improved its tally from 28 in 2008 to 40 this year. Though the JD(S) tried hard to spread its influence beyond its stronghold of the Old Mysore region, it couldn’t make any significant breakthrough and was well below 58 seats it had won way back in 2004. Also, to its disappointment, the verdict has been decisively in favour of the Congress, thus eliminating any role of the JD(S) in government formation. People clearly did not favour a coalition government; they saw the Congress — and not the JD(S) — as an alternative to the BJP.
According to Prof Suresh Misra of the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, the Yeddyurappa factor has loomed large over the BJP. “It is clear that Yeddyurappa has spoiled the BJP’s party. His influence remains strong among his caste members. looking at the poll impact, it was a bad decision by the BJP to throw him out of the party,” says he.
Even the BJP leadership is divided on the Yeddyurappa factor. Many feel that it was a blunder on the part of the senior party leadership to isolate Yeddyurappa over the issue of corruption. A senior BJP leader says on the condition of anonymity that it was the ‘ego’ of a senior leader that destroyed the party in Karnataka. “Corruption was not at all an issue. A senior leader simply made it an ego issue taking a moral high ground on corruption. Who is not corrupt hereIJ We have not only lost a great experiment in Karnataka abut also an opportunity,” says he.
Some party workers believe that the BJP should have taken a leaf out of Sonia Gandhi’s Himachal Pradesh experiment. The Congress decided to go ahead with Virbhadra Singh as the party’s mascot in Himachal Pradesh despite unsubstantiated corruption charges levelled against him by his adversaries. This gamble worked for the Congress.
Yeddyurappa’s eviction from the BJP cost the party about 20 of 33 seats it had won in the lingayat belt of Mumbai-Karnataka in 2008. The BJP, which won 33 of 50 seats in the region then, has now been reduced to a mere 13. The KJP essentially split the BJP votes by half in many of these constituencies. While Yeddyurappa’s KJP could win only two of the 50 seats here and the Sriramulu’s BSR Congress none, the two breakaway parties handed the Congress victory in 31 seats — 19 more than what it had won in 2008.
The BJP, which swept Bagalkot, Bijapur, Gadag and Haveri in 2008, has virtually been wiped out in these districts, winning only three of the 25 seats. The BSR Congress, too, contributed to the BJP’s downfall, particularly in Gadag.
In Shirahatti, the Congress got 44,738 votes while the second-placed BJP candidate won 44,423. The BSR Congress took away 26,791 votes; even the KJP’s 3,841 votes was more than the winning margin.
JD(S) president HD Kumaraswamy acknowledges the role played by the two parties in the rise of the Congress — and the consequent decline of the BJP. “The KJP’s agenda was to divide votes. This has been achieved as is evident from the results,’’ says he.
State BJP president Prahlad Joshi agrees. “Many factors have damaged our interests. More than corruption, it was differences of opinion and the breaking away of a splinter group. The party will try to address all issues immediately,’’ says he.
Within the BJP, there are many takers of this viewpoint. Says a senior party leader, “Factional feud in the BJP has affected governance. This, along with political instability, has led to loss of confidence in the BJP. Also, corruption at the State level seems to have overshadowed the corruption charges against the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre.”
It’s not that the voters have not rewarded honest representatives — BJP’s Suresh Kumar and CN Aswath Narayan have easily retained their seats. But caste consideration did play its part, especially among those who were not exactly seen to be honest. No less than 23 former ministers, who held various portfolios in governments headed by Yeddyurappa and DV Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar, lost their seats. Even Deputy Chief Minister KS Eshwarappa could not retain his seat. He was pushed to the third position in Shimoga.
The impressive Karnataka victory has brought temporary reprieve to a beleaguered Congress, infusing a bit of cheer into an otherwise gloomy scenario. But there has been admission on the part of senior Congress leaders that this victory, however significant it may be, is more of an exception than rule. “People in Karnataka, after all, have voted for a State Government. To take a national meaning out of a State election would be highly misplaced,” says a Congress worker.
Many analysts, too, caution the UPA not to take the Karnataka victory as a referendum on the national scale. Message is loud and clear that this election was fought on local issues, a vote on the quality of governance delivered by the BJP in Karnataka. By no means, national issues got any traction during the campaign.
It is interesting to note NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s comment on the Karnataka election. He said that the result would not set the tone for the lok Sabha election in 2014. Addressing a rally in Satara, he said: “Don’t jump to any conclusion because of the win in Karnataka. The forthcoming elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are more important and pose a bigger challenge to the UPA. One can’t predict which way the wind will blow with just one electoral victory.”
Pawar’s comment may not appear soothing to the Congress leadership, especially at the Centre, but it’s a realistic analysis of the political scenario in the country.