NEW DELHI: Stakes are excessive for the BJP and better nonetheless for the Congress as folks vote to elect a brand new authorities in Karnataka on Wednesday following an intense and sometimes bitter marketing campaign that noticed the ‘entry’ of Lord Hanuman within the final leg of the electoral battle fought as a lot on problems with governance as on ideology. If the Congress appeared to take the struggle to the rival by elevating the pitch over alleged corruption below the BJP authorities headed first by B S Yediyurappa after which by Basavaraj Bommai with its excessive decibel “40 per cent sarkara” plank, the incumbent rode the “double engine” narrative to hunt one other time period to push Karnataka greater up the event chart.
The opposition occasion has additionally supplied 5 ensures, a bunch of welfare measures and sops, and promised to lift the entire reservation from the prevailing 50 per cent to 75 per cent, a nod to its latest flip to the social justice plank wielded to date by regional events. However, it’s its two different manifesto guarantees – powerful motion together with a ban on organisations like Bajrang Dal and already-proscribed radical Islamic physique PFI, and restoring the 4 per cent quota for Muslims – which were seized by the BJP to ramp up its Hindutva plank within the hope of consolidating votes.
After the Congress manifesto launch on May 2, the BJP introduced each points to the centre stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself charging the opposition occasion with in search of to “lock up” Lord Hanuman and those that chant slogans to his glory after earlier “locking up” Lord Ram. As the slogan “Bajrang Bali ki Jai” turned ubiquitous in Modi’s rallies, different prime BJP leaders launched an all-out assault on the Congress, accusing it of “politics of appeasement”.
Senior BJP chief B L Santhosh famous through the marketing campaign that it’s the Congress that launched the problem and his occasion will certainly increase it. Congress leaders, nevertheless, imagine that the BJP’s warfare cry won’t have a lot resonance in a state the place Hindutva has not paid a lot electoral dividends outdoors the coastal area.
The view throughout the occasion is that its promise of motion in opposition to Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of RSS-affiliated Vishwa Hindu Parishad, will assist it win over these sections of Muslims who’re favourably inclined to Janata Dal (Secular), which has maintained a sturdy presence in Old Mysuru area below the stewardship of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda.
The JD(S)’s sturdy presence within the area has been a key motive behind the state polls typically throwing up a hung verdict. Experts imagine that the Congress’ efficiency can have a giant bearing on its heft in any possible opposition alliance as some regional satraps like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal have typically aired their doubts about its energy in countering the BJP because the occasion misplaced one state after one other to the saffron occasion.
The occasion additionally went all weapons blazing within the ballot marketing campaign, not like in lots of different state elections within the final a number of years, with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra canvassing extensively for weeks in Karnataka and Sonia Gandhi too becoming a member of in by addressing a uncommon public assembly. Its octogenarian occasion president Mallikarjun Kharge alongside together with his two senior Karnataka colleagues, former chief minister Siddaramaiah and state chief DK Shivakumar, made different key parts of aggressive electioneering.
A Congress win will probably be seen by the occasion as an endorsement of its flip to quota politics after its repeated failure to nook the BJP, enhance its nationwide management, particularly Rahul Gandhi whose Bharat Jodo Yatra is on an electoral take a look at, and produce it in control of a resourceful huge state like Karnataka.
For the BJP, specialists imagine, a win will add to the aura of invincibility across the occasion and particularly Modi, who has been the entrance and centre of its marketing campaign, as retaining Karnataka is seen as a difficult ask. The state has by no means voted the incumbent occasion to energy since 1985. The occasion has additionally taken the gambit of overlooking a number of senior leaders in its efforts to usher in a youthful and extra “disciplined” management and ease out entrenched veterans, with some like former chief minister Jagadish Shettar rebelling.
Voters’ alternative will resolve if the gamble has labored or failed for the occasion. A loss within the southern state could also be a setback to the BJP which fits to each election with excessive stakes and takes satisfaction in upending typical calculations and retaining energy by beating off anti-incumbency issue. It may also be a blow to its ambition to increase footprints in south India at a time when it’s in an overdrive to tackle the TRS in Telangana and to emerge as a stronger power in Kerala by wooing Christians. Karnataka is the one southern state the place the BJP has ever been in energy.
It could also be famous that the BJP had didn’t get a majority within the 2018 Karnataka polls and the Congress and the JD(S) joined palms to kind the federal government. It had additionally misplaced meeting polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in that yr earlier than sweeping all these states, together with Karnataka, within the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Defections of opposition MLAs, principally within the Congress, introduced it to energy later in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
