By Shankar Raj*
Bengaluru: Will Karnataka voters rise above caste and religion? In a crucial election ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Karnataka began voting for the 224 Assembly seats today even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Party have expressed confidence to defy history and form a government on their own.
The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), the third major party in the fray, sent out the message that the polls would surely throw up a fractured mandate and its second-in-command, HD Kumaraswamy, would return as chief minister. Banking on the loyalty of the Vokkaligas to former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy’s performance as the chief minister in the past, the JD(S) is hoping, at least, to play kingmaker.
There are three possibilities that may emerge: The Congress Party gets a majority. The Congress has never been so strong in Karnataka in the recent past and hopes to storm back to power. Since 1985, voters in Karnataka have stuck to the policy of ousting the party in power. And the Congress Party strongly believes the anti-incumbency factor and corruption charges against the Basavaraj Bommai government are bound to have an impact this time.
The second is a BJP comeback, the sole reason being the strong pitch of growth that Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised during his election campaigns. For the BJP it is crucial to defend its only saffron fortress in the South. A win in Karnataka would stymie the efforts of a Congress-led united opposition ahead of the 2024 elections.
The third possibility is a hung assembly – something that Karnataka is famous for. In the last 25 years – 1999, 2004, 2008, 2013 and 2018, only two elections produced a clear mandate – 1999 and 2013.
Also read: Will Karnataka defy history?
Traditionally, the two dominant communities – the Lingayats and Vokkaligas — have dictated the outcome of the polls. Since 1952, the combined representation of Lingayats and Vokkaligas has always oscillated between 48% and 59% of the seats. Karnataka has never witnessed an Assembly in which members of these two caste groups did not occupy a majority of the seats. It is said that regardless of which party wins, these two communities never lose!
But this time, there is another factor – the OBC (Other Backward Classes) votes.
The Congress has been focusing on the OBCs and Muslim vote banks to blunt the advantage of the BJP’s support from the Lingayat community.
In Karnataka, OBCs constitute 22% of the population and influence the outcome in about 30 Assembly seats, especially those that traditionally have had thin victory margins. In the last elections, the BJP had bagged 50% OBC votes in the Assembly elections. In the last Lok Sabha elections the BJP bagged 37.4% OBC votes as against Congress 19.5% and regional parties 26.4%.
The crucial question is will the OBCs dump the BJP. Very doubtful as the BJP has plugged any possibility of an OBC vote bank leak by keeping the OBCs in good humour.
The Muslim votes is likely to go to the Congress as the community feels that the JD(S) cannot protect their interests.
Coming back to the Lingayat community, the BJP got a minor setback on the eve of polling when the All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha, led by Shamanur Shivashankarappa of the Congress Party, pledged support to the Congress. But former chief minister and senior Lingayat leader in the BJP, BS Yediyurappa, said the Lingayat community is “101%” with the saffron party.
Yediyurappa said Shivashankarappa’s claim was fake and it was an attempt to “instigate” the community against the BJP. But the fissures are clear.
Many see the Karnataka elections as a quarterfinal before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In all, 2,613 candidates are in the fray, including 185 women candidates and one from the ‘Others’ category.
The BJP has fielded candidates in all 224 segments, Congress is contesting from 223, and JD(S) in 207 constituencies.
Bengaluru, which has 28 assembly segments, has 389 candidates, including 38 women.
Basically, it is going to be a promise of double-engine growth versus corruption. But the outcome is anybody’s guess though some opinion polls have predicted an outright win for the Congress while others have given the BJP another chance to govern Karnataka. Some surveys have predicted a hung assembly. Which of these survey will prove true, only results will tell.
*Shankar Raj is a former Editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
