Elections have been announced in Karnataka and in less than forty-five days, we will know which party and which leader will take charge of the state. Election is as much a gamble as it is a strange roulette of hope. No matter the nervousness that cramps the muscles of leaders, there is bravado that stalks the campaign streets. No matter the cynicism that spills over in the minds of voters, the ship has been set sail.
The process of ticket distribution has picked up speed; it has to all be done anyway before April 20. Instead of trying to guess the results of the election, which is in the familiar realm of unhinged betting, or read horoscopes as Kannada television channels do with elan and impunity, it would be a rather interesting exercise to read the dilemmas of the key dramatis personae of these elections. The ambitions of leaders aside, it is their insecurities, their conundrums that are likely to settle the course of these elections. This may be a more realistic exercise than trying to horribly guess how 5.21 crore voters will eventually behave on May 10, the voting day.
Since Congress is being touted as the frontrunner in these elections, let us first look at the quandaries of Siddaramaiah, the former chief minister and one of his party’s chief campaigners. The biggest thing that haunts this backward class leader is if he has chosen the right constituency. After trying to make it look like he has multiple options across the state, he has come back to Varuna in his home district of Mysuru. A seat that he has had to snatch from his son who held it in the current Assembly.
For the longest time it appeared that Siddaramaiah had settled with Kolar. His camp followers and his hired analysts spoke of glowing surveys, but what eventually drove him away was the fear of sabotage from within his own party. The Badami seat he currently holds was won by a whisker in 2018. He was made unwelcome there, again, by his own party men. He did not dare to come back to Chamundeshwari, the second seat he contested last time and where he was defeated by a huge margin.
Despite being a mass face, Siddaramaiah’s victory margins in Assembly polls have been rather pathetic. Therefore, the biggest dilemma of a leader who wants to be the next chief minister is if he has picked the right seat, and if he will win. Since the son has had to give up his seat, his personal political legacy has also been somewhat checkmated. There were suggestions that Siddaramaiah should just campaign for the party and not contest the polls. That suggestion must have appeared like yet another trap to him. His mind perhaps looks only for traps and not opportunities anymore.
The other big player is B S Yediyurappa, the man who gave BJP its success in Karnataka. He is 80 and is not contesting the polls but is in a peculiar space. He was made to step down as chief minister in July 2021 by his Delhi leaders for reasons best known to him and them. It was not about age, but they hinted that his vulnerabilities had caught up. But the deference with which he has now been bathed in—suddenly—has made him doubt everything. The way Prime Minister Narendra Modi bent to do a namaste to him in Shivamogga, recently, was pretty unusual.
Yediyurappa is unsure if he is being propped up again because the BJP has failed with its Bommai experiment and to move beyond the balkanised Lingayat caste game. If the BJP top leadership got rid of Yediyurappa nearly two years ago, then what is it that has made them go back on their track? Something that does not happen easily in the BJP. Does that point to the party’s lack of confidence to radically alter the game in the state and still retain power? Yediyurappa and his family faced huge charges of corruption too.
Also, Yediyurappa must be wondering if his temporary resurgence will ensure that his son, B Y Vijayendra, will get to debut from Shikaripur, the constituency he has nurtured for decades. There is talk that the son may be fielded in a ‘guts and glory’ battle against Siddaramaiah in Varuna. Apparently, internal assessments indicate that he will win the seat by nearly 10,000 votes. If Vijayendra goes to Varuna, then what happens to the family fiefdom? The BJP leadership is unlikely to allow another member from the Yediyurappa family to contest from Shikaripura. His elder son, Raghavendra, represents the Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat. In his evening years, Yediyurappa is unable to decide if the adulation and appeasement that surrounds him is real or maya.
Finally, the circumstances of Janata Dal (Secular) leader H D Kumaraswamy appear very different. Although he has set a target of 123 seats this poll, his party’s ability to reach the figure is being discounted. He is not even being allowed to happily kite-fly if that is what he is doing. The opinion polls so far have given them the usual 30 odd seats that their 20% vote share will reap. But Kumaraswamy has said that they have perennially been underrated and their prospects are brighter this season.
ALSO READ | JD(S) keeps BJP and Congress on their toes
There is yet another existential question that perhaps haunts Kumaraswamy. While he is sure that his party will perform beyond expectations, he worries about the recklessness of his own brother’s family in Hassan district. There is a steady narrative and a tailwind for the development plan he has presented but fears that his brother H D Revanna’s family may wreck it. The brother’s wife is demanding a seat to contest the Hassan urban seat and that has put the family in a tight spot because even the family knows that the family is overrepresented. They do not want the ‘parivarvaad’ charge to drown them completely.
Kumaraswamy’s actor-son, Nikhil, is also contesting the polls this time. He is contesting from the seat his mother has vacated. Nikhil had lost Parliament polls in 2019. He has to make it this time. Kumaraswamy has to make it happen on yet another front—89-year-old Deve Gowda has nearly passed on the party’s baton to him—the anxiety is to grip it and run forward without dropping it.
Sugata Srinivasaraju
Senior journalist and author