The Karnataka Assembly election has become the focus of the nation. If one were to go by the trend over the last three decades, the state has never favoured the ruling party. In 1989, the Congress replaced the Janata Party. Five years later, the Janata Dal was voted to power in place of the Congress. In 1999, the Congress returned to power. The year 2004 saw the defeat of the Congress but no clear victory to any one party; the BJP won in 2008 but lost in 2013. This election would decide whether this trend would continue or not.
The Karnataka voter has over the last 25 years invariably voted against the national trend. The party in power at the Centre has rarely been favoured. In 1985, the Janata Party under the leadership of Ramakrishna Hegde won a few months after the nation gave a historic mandate to Rajiv Gandhi. In 1989, as the country voted out the Congress, the Grand Old Party won in Karnataka. Even as the minority government of P V Narasimha Rao of the Congress was introducing major economic reforms at the Centre, Karnataka voted the Janata Dal to power in 1994. When the Vajpayee-led NDA won the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Congress won in the state.
When the Congress-led UPA formed the government at the Centre in 2004, the party was forced to seek a coalition with the JD(S) in Karnataka later. Even as the UPA was preparing for a second term in power, the BJP won in 2008. When the UPA was on the verge of being voted out of power nationally, the Congress was entrusted with power in the state in 2013. So one thing is clear: only one of the above two trends is likely to be reversed.
The Karnataka election is crucial for the two major national players—the Congress and BJP. In some ways, this is the first semifinal before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The second semifinal is of course the state polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. For the Congress, retaining Karnataka is crucial to its survival at the national level. Since 2014, in whichever state it was in power it has lost the Assembly elections and failed to win another term. On the other hand, for the BJP, the political stakes are extremely high in Karnataka. This state is their gateway to South India. This is one state where they have earlier been in power and possibly the only southern state where they can hope to come to power, in the immediate future, on their own strength. A victory in Karnataka would boost its chances in the other state polls.
Karnataka has always had a distant third force and this time around it is the JD(S)-BSP combine. In the past, voters have never truly favoured a third force except when the state was in transition as in the 1983 and 2008 Assembly polls when no party got a majority. The voters, however, had not clearly indicated the alternative though the Janata Party emerged as the single largest party. In 2008, the BJP came close to the halfway mark and formed the government with the support of independents thus heralding a shift in the structure of political competition in the state.
The Karnataka election represents a contest between two alternative narratives. This is becoming increasingly clear as the election campaign is picking up. The BJP is taking recourse to its frequently tested and well-honed strategy, followed since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, of a campaign driven and managed by the central leadership.
This tactic becomes even more critical in Karnataka as the party realises the potential danger in projecting its local leadership which continues to be hopelessly divided and does not enjoy too much of credibility. On the other hand, the Congress high command has chosen to leave the initiative to their chief minister and made him the focus of their campaign. Given the inherent limitations of the national leadership to be able to garner votes, investing on leaders with a mass base at the state level has been a strategy used by the party in Punjab last year. Under Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s leadership, the party has chosen to focus on local issues and deflect attention from national-level issues and leaders that the BJP would have preferred to project.
In the last one year, the chief minister has sought to set the agenda with his conscious focus on the Kannadiga identity and building a larger social coalition of support. His move for a state flag, emphasis on the pride of belonging to the state and decision to accord the Lingayats-Veerashaivas minority religion status are all strategies aimed at directing the focus on issues which he believes would place the Congress at an advantage.
It can be argued that the results in Karnataka would verily be an indicator of which narrative was more skilfully communicated and presented and captured public imagination. A recent pre-poll survey conducted by Jain University-Lokniti-CSDS indicated that the competition of these rival narratives is clearly visible. The Congress move to privilege the local seems to have captured the public imagination, especially in small towns. The social justice agenda of the government seems to resonate with the poorer sections of society. But, the Lingayat move appears to have had a limited impact. The BJP has been banking on the campaign of Prime Minister Modi to sway voters. This is the first major state election campaign south of the Vindhyas where Modi’s skills would be put to test.
In the survey, respondents made the point that the two most critical factors in deciding whom to vote for are the party and the candidate. With a clear picture of the party nominees, it became increasingly clear that all the three major parties faced internal dissensions over the choice of nominees. What needs to be emphasized is that much of the rebellion would continue to remain below the surface and the party that is able to control factionalism more effectively will clearly have the upper hand.
The choice that would be exercised by the Karnataka voter is being keenly watched across the country. This tightly fought race appears to be a cliffhanger and the hectic campaigning undertaken by the parties could finally make all the difference.
Sandeep Shastri
Pro-Vice Chancellor, Jain University and a political commentator
Email: sandeep.shastri@jainuniversity.ac.in