Prime Minister Narendra Modi and JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda together held a few election rallies in the Vokkaliga heartland of Old Mysore region in the last one week. The JD(S), which has aligned with the BJP to save its fast-depleting turf, had mobilised party cadres to cheer both the leaders.
The 92-year-old Gowda defended Modi government and urged his followers to vote for the alliance to defeat ruling Congress in Karnataka.
Both BJP and JD(S) claim that the response has been good and the alliance will click.
After the disastrous 20:20 alliance of 2006-07 which propelled BJP to power in Karnataka twice after that, JD(S) had maintained a distance from the saffron party calling it communal and unreliable. After Modi came to power in 2014, the Gowda clan had mostly attacked him and the RSS, occasionally praising some of his initiatives.
After the near total rout of the party in last year's assembly elections, JD(S) quickly buried the hatchet and clinched a deal with the BJP agreeing to be its junior partner in the State.
Gowda's son and former CM H D Kumaraswamy led the talks and even agreed to mere three Lok Sabha seats in the bargain.
The return of Siddaramaiah as chief minister and the rise of their fellow caste leader DK Shivakumar in the ruling Congress forced the JD(S) to shed its so-called secular credentials and embrace the BJP ahead of Lok Sabha elections.
The Karnataka BJP, which was not so enthusiastic about joining hands with the Gowdas, was told by the party high command to fall in line to prevent fragmentation of anti-Congress votes in the State.
To cement the alliance, Gowda family even agreed to loan their son-in-law and a renowned cardiologist Dr C N Manjunath to the BJP as their candidate against Congress' three time MP and DK Shivakumar's younger brother DK Suresh in Bengaluru Rural.
The BJP's main vote bank is Lingayats who are traditionally opposed to the Vokkaligas. Vokkaligas are the core voters of the JD(S). The coming together of these two most powerful communities in the state is not new. From the 1970s to the late 1990s, Lingayats and Vokkaligas were the backbone of Janata Parivar against the Congress in Karnataka. After the collapse of Janata Parivar, a large section of the numerically bigger and a pan Karnataka community Lingayats moved to the BJP accepting BS Yediyurappa as their new caste leader in politics. Majority Vokkaligas backed Gowda's party JD(S), a breakaway faction of the Janata Dal.
Keeping these historical details in mind, both BJP and JD(S) think their alliance should work in southern Karnataka.
The BJP-JD(S) alliance is cleverly exploiting the Vokkaliga community's dislike for Siddaramaiah in his own home turf. They are telling the voters that vote for the Congress will embolden Siddaramaiah further diminishing the chances of Shivakumar and destroying their own party the JD(S).
This seems to be working on the ground, making the job of Shivakumar difficult. In last year's assembly elections, the Vokkaliga heartland had voted decisively for the Congress hoping that Shivakumar might get the CM post. Since there is no clarity on Siddaramaiah passing the baton to Shivakumar after two or three years, a big chunk of the Gowdas are slowly returning to the JD(S), their party of first choice.
Before 2019, in a Congress-JD(S)-BJP triangular fight, the Congress could do well in the Old Mysore region only because of splitting of anti Congress votes between JD(S) and BJP. In the 2019, Lok Sabha elections, the BJP swept the elections on Modi wave decimating the ruling alliance of Congress and JD(S).
The Congress claims that the same thing will happen again to JD(S)-BJP alliance. But the alliance partners rubbish such claims as stupid as Lingayat and Vokkaliga combination is perfectly compatible with each other, unlike Congress - JD(S) partnership.
Speaking to News18, Siddaramaiah said that the sole purpose of BJP wooing the JD(S) into its fold is to destroy them to make Karnataka a bipolar State.
"The BJP knows it can never win Old Mysore region on its own. They are planning to destroy the JD(S) by joining hands with them. The Gowda family is desperate for power and Kumaraswamy has walked into their trap which will finally end his political career", he said.
Congress' Vokkaliga face Shivakumar also agrees with Siddaramaiah on this. "This alliance is an opportunistic one. Both have no principles. They were abusing each other till the Assembly elections. They have come together only for the sake of power. Finally, the JD(S) will be swallowed up by the BJP", he said.
If the alliance clicks, BJP-JD(S) can certainly beat Congress in most seats, their strategists argue. The Congress hopes that the mobilisation of AHINDA or Backward Classes, Minorities and SCs/STs who are more in number against the upper caste alliance can halt the march of Modi and Gowda.
The JD(S) is contesting in three seats - Hassan, Mandya and Kolar. Gowda's grandson and sitting MP Prajwal Revanna has been repeated from Hassan and Kumaraswamy himself is contesting in Manday. The BJP is contesting in the remaining 25 Lok Sabha seats.
If this electoral arrangement succeeds, they might stay together for a longer period. If it fails, the outcome would be easy to predict.
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