As Karnataka is headed for polls early next year, April-May, the two major contenders – ruling Congress and the powerful challenger, the BJP – have pulled out all stops in a high-stake battle that promises drama, emotions and action and present a peep into the national political projections for the 2019 general elections.
For starters, it is one of the very few states that the Congress has with itself. But given the anti-incumbency factor that is expected of any ruling party and the overall success and strike rate of the BJP in elections since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Karnataka would have been the fittest case for it to become Congress-mukt.
But, things may go awry for the BJP in the only southern state it had penetrated, for an assortment of reasons. First and foremost, BJP is a house divided with each of its tall leaders in direct fight with another and the infighting is sure to cost the party dear. For the BJP leaders, the stakes are high, as a party in power at the Centre, its leaders fancy the chances of a BJP victory and thus are more aggressively competitive.
If the BJP infighting, that the party president Amit Shah has been trying to diffuse and get the local leaders to bury the hatchet and work as a unified team, which is essential for bagging the state that will help the party in its Mission 350 in 2019 general elections. For public appearances, the BJP has begun to flex its muscles as a party with political muscle and is on a high visibility campaigns and protests on a host of issues.

What has perturbed bJp is the people’s mood and also a recent survey that predicted an easy congress Win With bJp coming a distant second

But clearly, its central leadership realises the need to put an end to the intra-party feuds to rest, if the state must be wrested from the Congress. It is with this aim that the central leadership decided to oversee the matters itself and ruled out decision-making powers to state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa or legislative council leader of opposition KS Eshwarappa. The local unit and its affairs are being entrusted to Union Minister Prakash Javadekar.
What has perturbed the BJP national leadership is the ground situation, as reflected by people’s mood and also a recent pre-poll survey that predicted an easy Congress win with the BJP coming a distant second.
The survey predicted 120-132 seats and the BJP second with 60 to 72 seats. JD(S) meanwhile is expected to win 24 to 30 seats in the 225-member assembly.
Now, this is a wake-up call for the party, admit its leaders. For the present, BJP can be happy that the third player, regional party, Janata Dal (S) led by former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, is going alone and is expected to remain in third position.
At the national level, the JD(S) has teamed up in the past with secular parties. Being the last political battle, as declared by self, Kumaraswamy is expected to make a determined bid for maximising political benefit. If for any reason, he decides to team up with the Congress, then the BJP can kiss its chances in the state a goodbye. He is sure that the fate of regional parties like his is not so certain after eight of his MLAs cross-voted for Congress in the Rajya Sabha elections. Former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy declared that the assembly elections in 2018 in Karnataka will be his final attempt in politics, as regional parties were facing uncertainty in the state. “The next year’s elections will be testing regional parties hard. But we are wellprepared to fight for our survival,” he told media persons recently in Karnataka. The same survey that predicted a facile Congress victory gave 25 to 30 seats to the JD(S). This is even more bad news for the BJP, and if the trends hold and the survey carried out across 165 constituencies with a sample size of 24,679 respondents predicted a 43 per cent vote share for the Congress and only 32 per cent for the BJP.
It is not difficult to see why Karnataka voters do not show the same level of enthusiasm for the BJP and its face here Yeddyurappa. Firstly, chief minister S Siddharamaiah is seen as someone who is trying to govern and there are no major scandals against him or his ministers, as yet. Unlike as in Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party was seen presiding over jungle raj and his ministers looting the state. But Siddharamaiah does enjoy a good reputation as a chief minister who is popular.
But more important, for the Congress, he has skilfully and intelligently raised issues that have put the BJP on the backfoot.
First, very smartly the chief minister gave tacit support to the anti-Hindi stir that caught the BJP entirely on the wrong foot. But for this the BJP has itself or its leaders in Delhi to blame. What began as an innocuous insertion of Hindi signage in Metro stations soon developed into a full-scale language issue, on which the BJP is forced to be on the backfoot. And former senior BJP leader and former Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu’s assertion that people must speak Hindi as it was the Rashtra Bhasha, coming at around the same time, did not help the matters either. In fact, these kinds of statements only angered the pro-Kannada groups that stepped up protests, blackening the Hindi signages not just in Metro stations but at shops and establishments too.
The Karnataka government too came out in support of the protesters, refusing to allow Hindi language sign boards and questioned why they were needed in the first place. The issue caught public imagination in Karnataka and for sure, for supporting the protesters on a highly emotional issue, chief minister and his party scored brownie points. It remains to be seen if the language issue translates into votes for the Congress, but it has given a stick to beat the BJP with, admitted a BJP worker.
Going further, the chief minister also began to take steps to make Kannada compulsory in schools and educational institutions, once again a move that is aimed at pandering to the Kannada groups. But language is an issue over which a national party like the BJP, which is a strong proponent and propagator of the Hindi language, can hardly counter as its position elsewhere in the Hindi belt would get affected. For the Congress, it can take the risk at present, as it hardly exists in the Hindi belt, a political analyst said.
Around the same time, the chief minister also kicked up the issue of a state flag for Karnataka, drawing sharp response from the BJP leaders. It also kicked up a huge debate across the country raising questions as to a state was free to have its own flag. Very skillfully, Karnataka chief minister put the issue of Kannada identity on the top of the mind for the voters. Any attempt to crtiticise the Karnataka government to explore the possibility of having a state flag would be seen as an anti-Kannadiga move by the people of the state.

a foray into the lingayat vote Will also help siddharamaiah expand support base beyond minorities, the backWard classes and the dalits

If these were the issues to put the BJP on the defensive in the state, Chief Minister Siddharamaiah thought up a brilliant votebank robbery to break into BJP’s captive Lingayat vote bank that belongs to its leader from the same community – Yeddyurappa. It is for the first time in recent years that the Congress hopes to secure a sizeable chunk of the 18 per cent Lingayat votes after the chief minister came out in full support of a contentious demand from a section of Lingayats for a separate religion tag outside of Hinduism.
A successful foray into the Lingayat vote bank will also help Siddharamaiah to expand electoral support base beyond minorities, the backward classes and the Dalits. Besides, if the Lingayat vote bank is breached, then it would hurt the BJP’s chances as the community vote is crucial for its bid to come to power in the state. At a rough count, Lingayat votes play a decisive role in at least 50 seats. And it could be more, said a political analyst.
With this support to Lingayat community demand, the Congress has captured the attention of the state. The Lingayats fall in the OBC category, and it is a community made up of different castes within Hinduism, united by their allegiance to the teachings of Basaveshwara, a 12th-century social reformer and a poet-saint within the Bhakti movement. Basavanna, as he is popularly known, fought the inequalities of the Hindu social order by establishing a new egalitarian religious stream or sect of Shiva worship called Veerashaivism, which attracted followers from different sections of society.
Demand for separate Lingayat religion was made at a rally in July in Bidar. They hold that Lingayat religion was an independent religion based on the Vachanas or the poetic corpus left behind by Basavanna.
This, according to them, was the founding text of Lingayat worship. Therefore, they ought to be recognised both as separate from Veerashaivas (who were one of the many sects within the Lingayat community) and Hindus.
Siddharamaiah jumped in, announcing that he would make a representation to the central government on the issue if the Lingayats were unanimous on their demand. Yeddyurappa dismissed the demand and the clash of the two senior leaders on the issue only heated up the political atmosphere.
Siddharamaiah pressed into service a group of ministers to tour the state to drum up support for the Lingayat demand. But JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy, a Vokaligga, opposed the Congress move.
“It is a clever move by Siddharamaiah. But will he follow it through after elections,” doubt political analysts.
Congress leaders, however, said the main reason why people would vote Siddharamaiah government back was its track record and the chief minister enjoys good reputation. Said party leader Brajesh Kallappa, “The Congress has absolutely no divisions or factional feuds. It is in the BJP that there is severe infighting and even after one year of trying, Amit Shah seems to have not got the desired results. And it works to our advantage.”
Moreover, the central government did not support Karnataka on the Cauvery issue, which is a very important issue for Karnataka, Kallappa said.
“Of course it is too early to say, but for the present, the Congress seems to be on a sound footing,” Kallappa added in good measure.