Karnataka Elections 2023: The gateway to the South that BJP cannot afford to lose 

The Congress’s capability to sew the rough edges and go as a united force might hold the clue to the success the Gandhis dearly want in Karnataka.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed half a dozen public meetings in Karnataka, which will elect 224 legislators on May 10, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched his party’s campaign with a three-day stopover in Belagavi and Tumakuru after a 21-day walkathon last September during his “Bharat Jodi Yatra”, the contours of the battle ahead are getting etched.

As with every state election in the past, Modi will undergird the Karnataka polls, while Home minister Amit Shah will do the heavy lifting. The Congress has apparently left the exercise to the local leadership, notwithstanding the manifest streak of factionalism in its ranks. The Congress looks like it is willing to take the risk.

Karnataka: South’s Outlier

The BJP and the Congress are deeply invested in Karnataka. Among the southern states, the state has consistently shown a greater inclination to go with the “national” unlike neighbouring Tamil Nadu that is dominated by regional parties and in the recent past, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The Janata Dal (Secular), with former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda as the presiding deity, is the third angle of the triangle but as a regional force it faces a test of survival in May.

For the BJP that ruled Karnataka in two phases since the last election in 2018, it was a bumpy ride to power. After inducements persuaded several Congress and JD(S) legislators to cross over to help BJP form a government, the party had the tough task of alternating between pandering to, or rebuffing, the demands made by the renegades.

Under no circumstances, BJP can afford to lose the state which not only features high on the economic and infrastructural rankings among Indian states and is projected as an attractive investment destination. Karnataka is the BJP’s gateway to the south.

Indeed, it is the only southern state that has sent the BJP to power since 2008, thanks to the pioneering work done by the RSS largely in the coastal areas and the BJP’s adeptness in understanding the caste jigsaw puzzle, picking out the right pieces and arranging these into a winnable whole.

Package Deal: Yediyurappa And Lingayats

In formulating the caste equations, the BJP drew its primary sustenance from the Lingayats, who form the largest demographic grouping (though split into competing sub-sects) and are dominant in the north and central regions of Karnataka.

The BJP’s over-dependence on the Lingayats, an ambitious community, also led to an overreliance on BS Yediyurappa, its longest serving CM with a chequered career. When it bit the bullet and replaced Yediyurappa as the CM in July 2021, it brought another Lingayat, Basavaraj Bommai, in his place.

Twenty months later, it appears as though the BJP is not confident about Bommai – a former Janata Dal (United) MLA who joined the BJP in 2008 – delivering a second term while remaining divided over Yediyurappa. It blows hot and cold towards Yediyurappa, the temperature waxing or waning with circumstances.

Vijayendra Rises?

At the heart of Yediyurappa’s equation with the BJP is his second son, BY Vijayendra, a state BJP vice-president.  In the past, the central leaders rebuffed Yediyurappa’s entreaties to give a legislative assembly ticket to Vijayendra and failing that, a berth in the legislative council. This time, Yediyurappa managed to secure a nomination for Vijayendra from his former seat, Shikaripura, with the official party ticket in his case being just a formality now.

Modi and Shah are acutely aware of the damage Yediyurappa caused when he quit the BJP in 2012 and floated his Karnataka Janata Paksha. In the 2013 polls, the KJP won 8 of the 203 seats it contested but restricted the BJP to just 40 as against the 110 it won under Yediyurappa’s leadership in 2008.

The latest optics of an early morning breakfast Shah had at Yediyurappa’s family home on March 23, with Vijayendra waiting on him, were intended to reinforce the view that Delhi was still with father and son.

Congress’s “Head Start”

The X-factors for the BJP are the degree of Yediyurappa’s backing – half-hearted or enthusiastic, Bommai’s acceptability among the Lingayats, the BJP’s ability to go beyond the Lingayat vote-bank and coax the support of other groupings like the Vokkaligas, backward castes and Dalits, the efficacy of the communal card played during Bommai’s tenure and lastly, the credibility of the double-engine narrative.

Doubtless, the Congress had reasons to claim a “head start” over the BJP after it declared the first list of its nominees while the BJP is yet to announce. The perceived rivals, DK Shivakumar, the state Congress president, and Siddharamaiah, the former CM, have got tickets from Kanakapura and Varuna respectively. Varuna was held by Siddharamaiah’s son, Yathindra. That’s not the story’s end. Siddharamaiah insists on getting a second ticket from Kolar which the party’s leaders seem unwilling to concede.

The Congress’s capability to sew the rough edges and go as a united force might hold the clue to the success the Gandhis dearly want in Karnataka.