The year 2022 will be a trailer for the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections. From now, therefore, every action and inaction, every decision and indecision, both political and governmental, will have an imprint of the impending elections. Pre-election desertions of leaders from one party to another have already begun and it will only gather momentum in the days to come. For the ruling BJP, neither the results of the recent Legislative Council elections nor the urban local body polls brought any cheer.
The events thus far amply suggest that the BJP is going to make hard-Hindutva its main plank in preparation for the elections. The tell-tale signs can be now seen all over the state with attacks on minority institutions and practices, unbridled moral policing, hate-filled speeches by both political and religious leaders and the government’s resolve to legislate against religious conversions. The days ahead will only see much more aggressive politics.
The BJP has so far presented its sober face in the state, except in the coastal belt. However, the party’s electoral journey here, despite having formed the government twice, has not been very bright. It has never been able to win a simple majority. On both occasions when it formed the government, the party mustered numbers by literally purchasing opposition legislators. Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma nor Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s strategic election management seem to work much with the Karnataka electorate in Assembly elections.
The hard-Hindutva agenda, thus, seems to be the last-resort strategy for the saffron party to establish itself more firmly. As the party leaders and cadre would try hard to push this agenda to create an intense sense of insecurity among the Hindu majority, the state is likely to witness pitched political-religious battles. Reports of attacks on Christmas celebrations in a district like Mandya, which has always maintained a distance from Hindutva politics, may very well be an indication of the shape of things to come.
The election year is the time when new social coalitions are engineered. The BJP has consolidated its support base among the Lingayats, and it will do everything to retain it. The party will continue to cultivate non-Lingayat castes mainly by snatching traditional Vokkaliga voters of the Old Mysuru region from the JDS, and OBC and Dalits voters of the Congress.
While it is difficult to precisely predict the emerging social alignment among the three parties, the ruling party’s tactics, based on religious and caste calculations, and the two opposition parties’ last-ditch efforts to hold on to their traditional support bases will be on full display through the year. Open involvement in politics of the heads of various Hindu and Lingayat mutts promises to make political churning a much-vexed affair.
Despite its orchestrated opposition to the government’s proposal to pass the anti-conversion Bill, the Congress response to the BJP’s aggressive communal agenda has been insipid and inconsistent. The Congress does not seem to be building any new social coalitions. Its strategy is confined to creating and cashing in on anti-incumbency sentiments against the government. No such anti-incumbency is palpable at this stage, but the fact that the Karnataka electorate has not been re-electing ruling parties since 1985 should be a matter of worry for the BJP and give some hope to the two opposition parties.
The year is crucial for the JDS as it needs to quickly reinvent itself by shedding its image as a family-centric party to be a serious third player in state politics. The party has been suffering repeated setbacks in its Old Mysuru stronghold after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In any case, it is difficult to dismiss its significance as the party tends to bounce back during election time with those who fail to get tickets in other parties making a beeline to it.
Amidst all these, one thing to be watched during the year ahead is whether Karnataka will see the birth of a new regional political party or whether the one such existing outfit, the Karnataka Rashtreeya Samiti (KRS), will finally emerge decisively on the political scene.
A Narayana
Associate Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru