Modernity and medievalism coexist in the contradiction called India, that is, Bharat. Come election season, the state that has wired the world suddenly turns into a vicious village abounding with warring caste chieftains, mutt messiahs, badland badshahs and millionaire matadors. As May 10, when voters will elect 224 members to the Vidhan Soudha approaches, tension is ratcheting up in the halls of ambition, the pits of rejection and the rings of rebellion.
Karnataka, being the gateway to the saffron South, is the chessboard on which the future national political realignments will decide the game. A BJP return to power will be hailed as a massive mandate for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charismatically effective leadership and style of governance. It will be another move to make the Centre stronger than the state in the ongoing federal battle of wits. A loss could realign Opposition dynamics by placing the Congress as India's second powerful party and also recharge an almost discharged opposition unity.
Historically, the results of a state election don't determine the outcome of national elections. Bucking the trend, the BJP won 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Karnataka is a miracle of paradoxes, providing numbers for the formation of Central governments but plagued by opportunistic politics from the '80s. Since then, political stability has been a mirage. During the past 23 years, it had 19 chief ministers, with the seasoned warhorse B S Yediyurappa helming Karnataka four times. Ramakrishna Hegde became the CM thrice in less than four years. On the contrary, only Congress Chief Ministers like S Nijalingappa, S M Krishna and Siddaramaiah could last full terms.
Once again, the BJP wholly depends on the 80-year-old former Chief Minister to keep the saffron flag flying. Bereft of a suitably tall leader, the BJP brought Yeddy out from cold storage; the Lingayat poll lord had floated his party. Yediyurappa was the first BJP chief minister to serve four terms in 12 years from 2007 to 2019: a Karnataka record. Actually, the BJP has been in office for 3182 days since 2007. But the average tenure of each of its four chief Ministers was less than 800 days, with Yediyurappa topping the list with 1907 days during four stints.
During the 2018 state elections, the BJP emerged as the single largest party. Backed by the then party president Amit Shah and Modi, BSY was sworn in as the Chief Minister on May 17 though he lacked a majority; he resigned six days later.
At this crucial juncture, Sonia Gandhi moved faster than Modi and Shah. She reached out to H D Deve Gowda to offer support to his son Kumaraswamy as chief minister even though his Janata Dal (Secular) had less than half the number of Congress MLAs--- 80 viz 37. The BJP had 104. Sonia did not consult any local leader who would have thwarted her attempt to prevent the BJP from running the state again.
But her experiment collapsed under its contradictions.
Kumaraswamy survived for just 14 months. Yediyurappa was back in the office after 429 days after weaning away 17 coalition MLAs. But the nemesis of corruption swept him off the throne after 668 days. But he continued to rule by proxy after installing caste loyalist Basavaraj Bommai, son of former Chief Minister S R Bommai as Karnataka's supremo.
The current battle for Karnataka isn't to get Bommai back as CM; he is just an extra who played hero in the political theatre dominated by a cast of formidable Congress leaders and the combined might of Modi, master strategist Shah and the well-oiled Sangh machine.
Going by the political narrative, it appears that the Southern Mahabharat is a war between the BJP and the Congress, with JD(S) playing a marginal role, hoping to be the kingmaker, if not the king itself. Both national players are keen to eliminate the Gowda Parivar as the dominant third player and turn the state into a bipolar battlefield. The Congress has the advantage in terms of the quality and popularity of its local leadership. Both KPCC President D K Shivakumar and former CM Siddaramaiah are well entrenched in local politics and have massive resources at their command.
Karnataka is the only state where the majority of the MLAs are crorepatis. The richest is a BJP MLA with over Rs 2000 crore in family assets. But the Congress has the maximum crorepatis. After defections by prominent BJP leaders, including a former deputy CM and CM, it is advantage Congress.
AAP is just a symbolic spoiler with Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann just stirring up a small storm in a big teacup. The Gandhis seem to have changed family strategy by stepping back as star campaigners and leaving the spotlight to its regional stars, though Sonia and her children have chosen their rallies selectively. The Congress, too, has factional cracks but has used political band to keep the BJP out. It has been able to eat into the BJP's Lingayat base and has foiled the BJP's attempt to convert the battle into Modi vs Rahul by continuously attacking Bommai and ministers. So far, communal polarisation hasn't assumed decisive proportions.
The BJP's prime objective is to consolidate the popularity of the Prime Minister since a win in Karnataka will enthuse its Southern cadres, which are stymied in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. As in the North, there is hardly a single Karnataka BJP leader who isn't seeking votes in Modi's name. The party is pitching the narrative that its nationalist Hindutva agenda covering the anti-conversion law and cow slaughter ban would be rolled back if the Congress returns.
The Congress is aware that Bommai, as the second engine, hasn't been able to provide any extra speed or power to the first engine, Modi. The Congress is cognisant that its victory would generate a domino effect since the BJP's failure to win a majority in 2018 was followed by three defeats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, respectively. Although saffron has recently swayed small North Eastern states, it can't afford to lose Karnataka.
For Modi and the party, the idea and philosophy of Double Engine Sarkar are at stake. Fed on local mojo, the Congress has taken upon itself the task of demolishing what it calls the BJP's dangerous attempt to impose a Dilli Sarkar in every state at any cost. After a long age of state politics playing skittles to win national prizes, both parties are skittish over who comes first. But in volatile Karnataka, the first has a habit of ending up either the second or the last.