Taking its first big gamble at “opposition unity” to take on the might of BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress appears to have decided to throw all its weight behind the HD Kumaraswamy-led government in Karnataka.
After dilly-dallying for 10 days over distribution of portfolios with the JD(S), the Congress made a series of concessions for its junior partner, leaving its own state leaders stunned.
Apart from conceding finance ministry – the bone of contention between the two parties – the Congress also handed over other plum portfolios like energy, public works, excise, transport and cooperation to the JD(S), though the party has only 37 MLAs and 11 cabinet berths to fill.
In the two coalition experiments earlier in 2004 and 2006, the deputy CM and the number two in the Cabinet had held the finance portfolio.
The icing on the cake for the JD(S) was that unlike power-sharing arrangements of the past – deputy CM Parameshwara had hinted that the CM post would be on a rotational basis – it was announced that Kumaraswamy “will continue as chief minister for a full-term of five years.”
To the dismay of state Congress leaders, Rahul Gandhi has also decided that the two parties will have a pre-poll alliance, and by implication, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will be fought under Kumaraswamy’s leadership.
The Congress and other opposition leaders seem to believe that the only way prime minister Narendra Modi and BJP’s election juggernaut can be halted in next Lok Sabha elections is by putting up a consensus candidate against the BJP in as many constituencies as possible.
A series of setbacks for the BJP in the by-elections across the country since 2014, especially when the opposition has put up a united front, seem to have convinced them that they have found a ‘magic formula’ to defeat Modi-Amit Shah combine.
Karnataka sends 28 MPs to the Lok Sabha and in the last two elections in 2009 and 2014, the BJP had won 19 and 17 seats respectively. The party had secured 43 per cent votes in 2014, up from 41.63 percent the previous time, though its tally went down by two seats. In 2014, the Congress got 40.8 percent votes and nine seats.
The number crunchers are already at work, and based on the votes polled by the Congress and the JD(S) in the recently concluded assembly elections, they have reportedly briefed the Congress high command that the two parties entering 2019 Lok Sabha elections in alliance can win as many as 22 seats, leaving only six seats to the BJP.
They have also pointed out that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress and JD(S) together polled 51.8 percent of votes as against 43 percent by the BJP and “it is a win-win situation for both.”
These calculations seem to overlook the fact that in electoral math, 2+2 is not necessarily four. The bulk of JD(S)’ 11 percent votes in 2014 came from south Karnataka, where it managed to win just two seats, both in direct fight against the Congress.
In three of the nine seats that Congress won, the margin of victory was 1,500 to 9,500 and the JD(S) won Mandya seat against Congress by a margin of 5,518.
In stark contrast, BJP candidates won 10 out of 17 seats by a margin of over 1 lakh votes, with BS Yeddyurappa winning by 3.63 lakh, DV Sadananda Gowda by 2.29 lakh and Ananthakumar by 2.28 lakh margins.
But, looking at the spectacular tumbling the BJP took in Gorakhpur and Phulpur byelections, the two seats vacated by UP chief minister Yogi Adithyanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya, barely 10 months after the Lok Sabha polls, the opposition hopes that they can be replicated elsewhere.
In Karnataka, however, the Congress and the JD(S) have been bitter enemies until recently and even if the leaders unite at the top, it is never going to be easy for the party workers to cooperate with each other at the grassroots level.
Besides, there is a flip side to the direct fight as against multi-cornered contests. For instance, it was clear that Veerappa Moily (Congress - Chikkaballapur), Prakash Hukkeri (Congress – Chikkodi), BV Nayak (Congress – Raichur) and CS Puttaraju (JD(S) – Mandya) were beneficiaries of the triangular fights in 2014 and they would have lost hopelessly had it been a direct contest.
Until 2004, Karnataka had been a strong Congress bastion. Even in 1977 soon after the Emergency, when Congress was wiped out in most parts of north India, Karnataka elected 24 Congress MPs to the Lok Sabha.
On the other hand, considering the fact that the maximum number of seats JD(S) has ever won in Karnataka is four, it will be a clear case of the tail wagging the dog and a huge embarrassment for state Congress leaders if they have to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha polls under Kumaraswamy’s leadership.
“Karnataka is one of the few states where Congress is still strong. But by handing over leadership to the JD(S), a much smaller party, are we helping the BJP agenda of Congress-mukt Bharat?,” a senior Congress leader mused.
(The author is a senior journalist based in Bengaluru.)
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