Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023: Exit polls give Congress the edge, with BJP close behind

Elections to the Karnataka Assembly were held on May 10 and the votes will be counted on May 13.

The Congress appears set for a comeback in Karnataka with most exit polls giving the party an edge in the Assembly elections held on March 10. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in second place, while the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS), which has been making noises about forming the government on its own, is a distant third, a position it has made its own over many polls now. But even so, if the exit polls are wrong and Karnataka has a hung Assembly, as some of the polls suggest, the JD(S) could once again end up becoming the king or the kingmaker. This is despite no exit poll giving it more than 33 seats.

Of the nine exit poll predictions, seven have put the Congress ahead of the others. India Today-My Axis India has given a clear majority to the Congress with a prediction of 131 (mid-range), with the BJP in second spot with 71 seats and the JD(S) at 22 seats.

ABC-CVoter has given the Congress 100 to 112 seats, short of a simple majority, the BJP 83 to 95 seats, JD(S) 21 to 29 and others 2 to 6. Today’s Chanakya survey predicted the Congress would get 120 seats, the BJP 92 and JD(S) 12, while TimesNow has given the Congress exactly 113 seats, the magic figure to form the government, with the BJP at 85, JD(S) at 23 and others with 3 seats.

Elections to the Karnataka Assembly were held on May 10 and the votes will be counted on May 13. A high-voltage campaign by all three parties ensured a voter turnout of 72.67 percent, excluding postal ballots and home voting (for senior citizens and the disabled) according to the Election Commission. In 2018, the turnout was 73.13 percent.

While the exit poll projections brought cheer in Congress circles, the ruling BJP rejected them. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said a high voter turnout always favours the BJP and not the Congress. Former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said the BJP would take a call on whether it should approach the JD(S) for support if the elections did not produce a clear winner.

Karnataka Congress Communications and Social Media Co-Chairman Mansoor Ali Khan said seven of the nine surveys giving an edge to his party indicated there was a silent wave in favour of the Congress. The good voter turnout was also an indication of the angst of the common man over spiralling prices and corruption, he added.

If the predictions prove to be correct and the Congress gets the numbers to form the government, Karnataka’s voters will yet again have shut the door on a ruling party’s bid to return to power. Since the re-election of Ramakrishna Hegde’s Janata Party government in 1985, no ruling party in the state has been handed the reins again by the voter. The Congress party, which got an absolute majority in 1989, and later in 1999 and 2013, failed to get a second term in the subsequent elections.

Congress: Eyeing a comeback 

A clear, simple majority is what Congress leaders are hoping for, especially as this would give the party a fillip in the runup to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 and wrest seats from the BJP, which has done better in the general elections since 2004. “We will have to carry the positivity forward and keep the momentum going. The Congress had to face the might of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who became the ‘Chief Ministerial’ candidate in these polls. The BJP sought votes in the name of Modi and hence a defeat for the BJP means a defeat for Modi, too,” Khan said.

A Congress win means a fight for the chief minister's post between KPCC president DK Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who are both frontrunners. While Shivakumar has announced that he has no qualms working under AICC President Mallikarjun M Kharge, if the latter becomes the CM, the KPCC Chief has been biding time for a long to get the post.  However, Congress cannot also afford to overlook Siddaramaiah, who had announced that the 2023 polls would be his last foray into electoral politics.

At the fag end of the poll campaign in Ramanagara, a Vokkaliga dominant constituency adjacent to  Kanakapura from where he contesting, Shivakumar appealed to the voters to give him a chance to be at the helm. “Ramanagara has been represented by four chief ministers in the past, give me a chance,” he said. (The four CMs are Kengal Hanumanthaiah, Ramakrishna Hegde, HD Deve Gowda and HD Kumaraswamy.)

A fractured mandate with no party getting the numbers to form the government may also result in Congress trying to team up with the JD(S), as it has in the past. However, this is a proposition that is not to the liking of Siddaramaiah, who was a reluctant partner in the JD(S)-Congress set up in 2018, before Kumaraswamy was dislodged after 17 Congress and JD(S) MLAs defected to the BJP. Congress sources said though the final call on who will be the CM is going to be decided by the party high command and the MLAs, Siddaramaiah is said to have an edge over Shivakumar due to his Ahinda (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and dalits) support.

BJP: Facing anti-incumbency

For the ruling BJP, the exit polls have come as a shocker with the majority of the exit polls leaving it in double digits, well below the 113 majority mark. Barring the coastal area with 19 seats, where the polls have predicted a clean sweep for the saffron party, its performance in other regions has fallen short of expectations.

The BJP was expecting to get its numbers from the Kalyan Karnataka and Mumbai Karnataka regions, which are both Lingayat-dominated regions that have stood by the party over the years. The Congress seems to have performed well here, indicating a split in Lingayat support.

An aggressive campaign by the BJP, with Modi alone addressing 17 meetings and 6 roadshows between April 29 and May 7, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other BJP leaders crisscrossing the state, does not seem to have had the desired impact on voters if the exit polls are to be believed. Shah, the main poll strategist, had set a target of 150 for the party. A defeat would be a blow to Modi’s appeal as the BJP had kept the prime minister and centre in front through the campaign.

A strong anti-incumbency wave was evident after Bommai took charge of Yediyurappa in July 2021. The state government's decision on internal reservation for Scheduled Castes, and placing Lingayats and the Vokkaligas in a new reservation category by hiking their quota at the cost of the 4 percent earmarked for Muslims does not seem to have clicked. The government was rapped by the Supreme Court for scrapping the Muslim quota. The case is still being heard.

If the party does not perform well on counting day, Bommai's Hindutva agenda to please the RSS and Sangh Parivar, failure to hold polls for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (which has not had an elected council since 2020), corruption charges and the BJP's central leadership experiment of giving tickets to 72 new faces could be blamed for the loss.

JD(S): Counting on a hung assembly

The JD(S), meanwhile, will be hoping to see its fortunes open up in the event of neither the Congress nor the BJP securing a majority. Former Prime Minister Deve Gowda, braving age-related ailments, and his son Kumaraswamy were the sole campaigners for the party.

Kumaraswamy, who ran a five-month Pancharatna yatra, was confident of the party winning 123 seats. However, despite giving more tickets to Lingayats and Muslims, the predictions do not augur well for the party, even in the Old Mysuru region, where it did well in 2018.

“These elections were a question of survival for the JD(S) and it will be in the reckoning only in the event of a hung Assembly,” a political commentator said. Reports suggest that the BJP might approach Kumaraswamy to cobble up the numbers, and the JD(S) could once again find itself at the helm, albeit through proxy.