THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though it could not win a single seat, the CPM in Karnataka is content that its strategy reaped benefits.The party, which contested 19 seats in the 2018 Karnataka assembly election, contested only four seats this time, instead choosing to support candidates who could defeat the BJP.
It contested in Bagepalli, KGF, KR Pura and Gulbarga constituencies and lost all seats. However, the party leadership is content that the BJP has been ousted from power. Unlike in Kerala, where the CPM and Congress are at loggerheads with each other, in Karnataka, for both these parties, the primary enemy is BJP.
The CPM Karnataka state committee decided to contest only four seats to pool the maximum number of anti-BJP votes in the state. “Our political line was to defeat the BJP at any cost,” CPM Karnataka state secretariat member K Prakash told TNIE.
“We didn’t want to split the anti-BJP vote. Apart from the four constituencies we contested, we asked our cadre and class organisations to vote for whichever secular party candidate can defeat BJP. The party even supported secular independent candidates in some constituencies,” he added.