Kalaburagi (Karnataka): North Karnataka is considered a fortress of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but the ruling party isn’t leaving anything to chance in seeking to avert a potential anti-incumbency vote in the region.
The BJP’s trump card in the campaign ahead of the May 10 assembly elections is, of course, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On May 2, massive crowds turned out for Modi’s 5-kilometre road show along a route on which key junctions were painted saffron. Patient crowds waited as long as three hours to catch a glimpse of the prime minister.
“I came here at 1 p.m. to get a clear spot. I can’t let anyone take it as I want to see my idol, Modiji,” said an activist who perched himself on a police post, sporting a saffron cap and waving a huge flag.
After addressing a huge public meeting in Chitradurga and meeting all the BJP candidates in that district, Modi descended on Kalaburagi in the evening. This was his second visit to North Karnataka in three days, after a rally in Humnabad in neighbouring Bidar district.
In Kalaburagi, his road show started on the Humnabad Ring Road and traversed through Kirani Bazar, Bande Bazar, Super Market and Jagat Circle before culminating at the six-lane junction of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Circle.
All the roads leading to the Circle were closed to normal traffic at 2 p.m. allowing thousands of citizens to gather for the road show to see Modi, who was visiting the city for the first time.
Thundering applause greeted Modi, who craned his neck out in all directions to wave with both hands and intermittently folded his hands in thanks.
The crowd had groups of Lambani tribespeople, burkha-clad Muslim women and a small bunch of young girls dressed up in colourful costumes, and volunteers who threw flower petals along the route from vantage points.
Dattatraya C Patil Revoor, known as Appu Gowda, is exuding confidence after Modi’s presence in his constituency for the first time.
“I’m banking on my development work which I did for the region in the last four years,” said the sitting MLA from Kalaburagi South.
Now for the Congress show
Tuesday was a saffron show all the way, leading up to a visit on Wednesday by the Congress’s star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi, who will be accompanied by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, a nine-time MLA from Kalaburagi district.
The 80-year Dalit leader won elections for a record ten times including nine consecutive times as an MLA. He also was elected to Parliament twice, acquiring the Kannada sobriquet Solilada Sardara (Undefeated Warrior), before losing the last Parliamentary election by a margin of 95,452 votes to his former booth manager Umesh G Jadhav, who switched loyalties and won on a BJP slate in 2019.
The Congress is counting on a perceived anti-incumbency wave against the sitting MLAs. Rahul Gandhi is campaigning in BJP strongholds in South Karnataka while Priyanka is working the North.
Kalaburagi district is one of the prominent battlefields where seven of the nine seats are critical, and can go either way in the two-way contest between the Congress and BJP.
Party, caste equations
Traditionally an underdog, the Janata Dal (Secular) is not expected to do much, but can play spoilsport by splitting the votes of winning candidates along with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the two factions of mining baron Janardhan Reddy and pro-Marathi groups.
Reddy is contesting the Koppal seat as a candidate of his Kalyan Karnataka Rajya Paksha (KKRP) and his wife his former seat in Ballari. Reddy is likely to dent the BJP votebank in Koppal, Raichur and Yadgir.
Pramod Muthalik of Srirama Sena, who has a considerable following in North Karnataka, has vowed to fight BJP. In the critical constituencies, both BJP and Congress MLAs enjoyed a less than 10,000-vote margin of victory in the last elections.
The result in about 10 seats among the 41 constituencies in the Kalyana Karnataka region is unpredictable. With the nine north-eastern districts forming the Kalyana Karnataka belt and the north-western Kittur Karnataka districts (55 seats), the North Karnataka region will hold the key to the reins of Bengaluru’s Vidhana Soudha.
In the 13 districts with over 90 assembly seats, presently BJP has 52 seats, the Congress 32 and the JD (S) six. The gap between BJP and Congress may reduce on May 10.
Like elsewhere in Karnataka, caste remains an electoral factor in the North.
“A couple of JD(S) candidates withdrawing from the campaign, and supporting Congress is another recent development in the region, which has negligible or no Vokkaliga votes. There is discontent among Koli Kabbaligas, who were fighting for ST (Scheduled Tribe) status for a long time and are moving away from BJP, but a significant slice of STs are leaning towards BJP,” said Sharan Basappa, a senior citizen and retired teacher.
The denouement
A bunch of students, all first-time voters, were returning from Bengaluru in a general train compartment after writing a competitive exam. Sunil, a civil engineering student, said he and all his friends will vote for the BJP.
“Kharge has done nothing for Gulbarga. It’s not like old times, where one voted for a fixed party. Now we look at the candidate and the development work is important for us. So, we’re supporting Appu Gowda,” he reasoned.
The rank and file of the saffron party is confident that the magic of Modi will work wonders for the ruling party.
“Till today I was a bit sceptical. But everything has changed now (after Modi’s visit),” said Narayan, a BJP worker who rained a box of petals at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Circle.
With only a week left for canvassing to end on May 8, all parties are wooing the voters. It has to be seen whether the Congress will capture the region or Modi’s magic will tilt the vote in the BJP’s favour.
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