Karnataka Assembly Elections: What A Victory Would Mean For BJP, Congress Ahead Of 2024 Polls | India News

New Delhi: As polling for the 224-member Karnataka Legislative Assembly closed on Wednesday and exit ballot projections flashed throughout tv screens, the query that might have crossed many minds is would the eventual consequence within the southern state have a bearing on subsequent yr’s Lok Sabha elections.

Hung Assembly In Karnataka?

Most exit-poll projections predicted a hung House in Karnataka whereas placing the Congress forward. Should these projections maintain, the BJP may have misplaced the one southern state that it has in its kitty. Karnataka sends as many as 28 members to the Lok Sabha, second solely to Tamil Nadu at 39, and, dropping the state would come as a setback for the BJP and its plans to increase its electoral footprint past Karnataka.

What Losing Karnataka Would Mean For BJP?

While dropping Karnataka would dent the BJP’s declare of being a pan-India get together, it might give the a lot wanted shot within the arm to the Congress because it eyes a revival in 2024 after a string of electoral reverses. Most political consultants and pollsters are of the opinion that successful Karnataka can be the important thing to constructing head of steam forward of the larger battle in 2024 and going into the subsequent normal elections filled with perception and conviction.

Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, their quintessential ballot mascot, the BJP has been making an attempt to woo the Christian neighborhood in Kerala as a part of its long-term aim of constructing deeper electoral inroads in a state the place it stays a fringe pressure.

While addressing a ‘Vijay Sammelan’ within the nationwide capital after the BJP’s thumping wins in Tripura and Nagaland, PM Modi outlined his imaginative and prescient for the get together to entrench its foothold in Kerala by successful over the members of the Christian neighborhood.

Again, in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, the BJP’s state chiefs – Aannamalai and Bandi Sanjay – have been waging aggressive campaigns towards the ruling events – the DMK and the BRS – within the hope of turning the tables on the subsequent battle for the hustings. 

Telangana is scheduled to go to polls later this yr. However, a loss in Karnataka would upset the BJP’s long-term imaginative and prescient of constructing a deeper southern ingress and take them again to the drafting board forward of the subsequent Lok Sabha elections.

What A Victory In Karnataka Would Mean For Congress?

On the opposite hand, a victory in Karnataka would see Congress nationwide president Mallikarjun Kharge ship a big-ticket electoral win to the excessive command, giving the grand outdated get together a contemporary burst of wind in its sails because it bids to show the tables on the BJP within the subsequent Lok Sabha elections.

With Karnataka additionally being his dwelling turf, a win for the Congress would, in some ways, come as redemption for the octogenarian Dalit chief, who had beforehand misplaced the race for CM regardless of his get together coming to energy.

The marketing campaign methods adopted by the BJP and the Congress in Karnataka have been like chalk and cheese. While the saffron get together constructed its marketing campaign across the larger-than-life picture of PM Modi and its pet nationalism and Hindutva planks, the Congress focussed extra on highlighting the bread-and-butter problems with the individuals, together with value rise, inflation and ‘unemployment’.

The Congress did commit what many noticed as an electoral fake pas, promising to think about banning the Bajrang Dal in its manifesto for Karnataka, thereby giving the BJP a gap to reaffirm its Hindutva credentials and name out the previous’s “appeasement politics”.

However, that aside, the Congress largely confined its marketing campaign to native points, avoiding a direct conflict with PM Modi’s formidable electoral stature that had proved disastrous for them in earlier ballot battles.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who has been utilizing the Adani-Hindenburg row and the alleged Chinese intrusion as points to focus on PM Modi and the Centre, harped extra on inflation, unemployment and alleged corruption below the BJP rule throughout his marketing campaign visits to Karnataka.

There are wheels inside wheels in Indian politics and the result of the Karnataka polls on May 13 may sign a shift within the political headwinds going into the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.