BENGALURU: A year after its defeat in the Assembly elections, the BJP managed to make a comeback by winning 17 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats, while its alliance partner JDS won two, taking the NDA tally to 19 in Karnataka.
The ruling Congress, which heavily banked on its guarantee schemes and hoped to make big gains, had to be content with nine seats.
But compared to the 2019 LS elections in which it had won just one seat, Congress’ tally increased significantly this time. However, it could not reach its target of winning double-digit seats. “We were not able to win LS seats as per our expectations. We were hoping to win 15-20 seats,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said.
The last time Congress reached double digits in Lok Sabha seats in the state was in 1999. However, compared to the last general elections, Congress’ vote share increased from 32.11% to 45.43%, BJP’s reduced from 51.75% to 46.06%, while JDS’ stood at 5.60%. In the 2023 Assembly polls, the Congress’ vote share was 42.88%, BJP’s 36% and JDS’ 13.29%.
The 2024 LS poll results in Karnataka have a striking similarity with the 2014 polls when BJP won 17, Congress 9, and JDS two seats. But JDS was not in an alliance with BJP then. Siddaramaiah was CM then and Lok Sabha polls were held a year after Congress won the Assembly polls in 2013.
Congress had high expectations from Karnataka and its campaign was mostly centered around Siddaramaiah government’s guarantee schemes as well as highlighting the Centre’s alleged disparity in devolution of taxes and releasing drought relief funds. Perhaps, the guarantees have not worked to the extent the Congress leaders expected.
“It is difficult to say that. We expected 14 seats, but we did not get the expected results from Kittur Karnataka and Bengaluru,” Deputy Chief Minister and KPCC president DK Shivakumar said, responding to a question on whether the guarantees failed to work.
Most of the seats for the party came from the North Karnataka region, especially from Kalyan Karnataka, the home turf of AICC president M Mallikarjun Kharge.
‘Despite Cong schemes, BJP-JDS gets 19’
The party also won the byelection to the Assembly from Shorapur constituency in Yadgir district. It suffered a jolt in Siddaramaiah’s home district Mysuru and Shivakumar’s home turf Bengaluru Rural.
While Congress seems to have made some gains in Lingayat-dominated constituencies, BJP’s decision to strike an alliance with JDS has helped it to a great extent in the Vokkaliga heartland of the Old Mysore region.
BJP won most of the seats in the Old Mysore region, except Hassan and Chamarajanagar. Former PM HD Deve Gowda’s son-in-law and well-known cardiologist Dr CN Manjunath trounced Shivakumar’s brother and sitting MP DK Suresh by a margin of over 2.69 lakh votes in Bengaluru Rural.
In 2019, this was the only seat the Congress won. Fielding Dr Manjunath from BJP worked towards combining JDS’ Vokkaliga support base with that of BJP’s in urban areas of the constituency. Besides the Modi factor worked for the alliance.
BJP Karnataka president BY Vijayendra said despite the Congress’ guarantees campaign, the BJP-JDS alliance won 19 seats in the state. The results would cement his leadership in BJP.
The Congress and its government in the state may see some churning as leaders from North Karnataka may demand key positions.
The JDS emerged as the biggest gainer by winning two of the three seats it contested. Former CM HD Kumaraswamy and M Mallesh Babu won Mandya and Kolar seats, respectively.
Kumaraswamy’s victory provided the much-needed morale boost for JDS, which has been facing rough weather since its drubbing in the 2023 Assembly polls. Its MP Prajwal Revanna is facing charges of rape and sexual assault and is now in SIT custody. He lost Hassan, the JDS bastion, to Shreyas Patel of Congress by a margin of 43,000 votes.