Congress fears coalition ripple effects on Karnataka gram panchayat polls

Ahead of the gram panchayat byelections on February 9, the party sees considerable vote shift in favour of BJP after it ended its coalition with JDS.

BENGALURU: Their coalition with JDS might be long gone but the Congress is still worried about its continuing aftereffects. They first lost heavily in the Lok Sabha polls, then lost the coalition government, after that they lost 14 of their legislators and ultimately lost 10 assembly seats that they had previously held in the December 5 bypolls.

After bearing the brunt of it all, the Congress is now worried about the fissures developed due to their coalition with the JDS and its possible impact on the upcoming gram panchayat byelections. 

Elections to 173 seats in 141 gram panchayats of nine districts — Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Chikkaballapur, Mysuru, Mandya, Belagavi, Haveri, Uttara Kannada and Ballari — are scheduled to be held on February 9.

Although these elections are not fought on party symbols, they are indicators of grassroots level reach of political parties.  Elections to vacant seats in 20 districts were held in November 2019.

First, with the resounding victory of Mandya Independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh in the LS polls - backed by the BJP - and then defector Narayana Gowda’s victory in KR Pete in the assembly bypolls, the Congress and JDS have seen a considerable vote shift in favour of the BJP.

In a region where Congress and JDS have been the only two players, the BJP is making inroads naturally eating into their vote share. "Coalition with the JDS was a mistake. We lost a lot of vote share to the BJP, especially in the Old Mysuru region where BJP was a non-entity. Forced to vote in support of a party that they have always fought against, our cadres and voters rebelled and transferred their votes to the BJP," said a senior Congress leader. BJP’s win in KR Pete has only compounded the Congress’ fears. 

The BJP has not just a ready-made-trained cadre freshly transferred from the JDS and Congress in Old Mysuru region but also has strong leaders in the region as newly-elected MLAs — all those who defected from Congress or JDS. Both these factors, Congress believes, are going to impact the results of the gram panchayat byelections. 

"Congress has always performed well in local body elections because we have a good grassroots presence, especially in the Old Mysuru region. Since our foot soldiers themselves are the candidates in these elections, the dynamics are different from an assembly election where they are only party workers but the BJP making in-roads is a problem," said a Congress office-bearer.

NUMBER OF SEATS

Elections are scheduled to be held for panchayats in 9 seats of Bengaluru Urban, 6 in Bengaluru Rural, 9 in Chikkaballapur, 25 in Mysuru, 8 in Mandya, 43 in Belagavi, 7 in Haveri, 43 in Uttara Kannada and 23 seats in Ballari. 

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