Karnataka Elections 2023: Why BJP should sit in opposition if state throws a Hung Assembly on 13 May

As voters exercised their right to franchise in Karnataka on Wednesday, it must be said that this has been unlike any elections that the state witnessed in the past. From one perspective, it portends to be both historic and poses a challenge to the state’s destiny as well. The last stable government that Karnataka witnessed was during the tenure of SM Krishna who left office in 2004. Ever since it has been a tumultuous journey of unwieldy and warring coalition governments barring Siddaramaiah’s chief ministership. However, Siddaramaiah’s tenure didn’t exactly bring stability to the state. He was perhaps the first and will probably be the last chief minister who ran Karnataka based on an overtly Far Left ideology. Even a cursory study of his reign shows that economically, he set back the state by at least 20 years. And this doesn’t include his dangerous experiments with extreme Muslim appeasement and the serial murders of Hindu activists that occurred under his watch in Karnataka. On the other side, the track record of the BJP-led coalition governments hasn’t been quite stellar. The BJP’s greatest failing in Karnataka so far has been four-pronged. One, the inability to consolidate power. Two, ineptness at containing factionalism. Three, a distinct paucity of perception management. Four, lack of foresight or negligence in grooming generational leadership. A combination of one or many or all of these drawbacks have perhaps contributed to the selection of Basavaraj Bommai as chief minister who is not really an “original” BJP in the sense that Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa, Suresh Kumar, CT Ravi, et al., are. In the Congress camp, the situation appears far worse than its domesticated media wants to project. Its seniormost leader, the token AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge is not even contesting (he has fielded his son) and at 81, is not exactly a youth icon. Leaders of his vintage have either retired or are inactive. Others have been marginalised. The only faces we’ve seen so far are that of DK Shiva Kumar and Siddaramaiah, both at each others’ throats in a highly public fashion. This is notwithstanding the stage-managed bouts of bonhomie. Indeed, a visible clue has been available since the Congress campaign was launched: when was the last time any Congress-friendly media splurged such coverage over DK Shiva Kumar who until last year was regarded as a minor leader by this legacy media establishment? It can be argued that he gets this coverage because he’s the KPCC president but that is only a partial truth. The full story is that there is simply no leader of any stature in the Karnataka Congress who this legacy media has been able to find. A good chunk of blame for this state of affairs should belong to Siddaramaiah. A rank import from the JD(S), he joined the Congress in 2006 and with it, inflicted a body blow on the JD(S). The other facet of his chief ministership was the manner in which he bulldozed the existing power structures in the Congress. Back then, the common refrain in the Congress was that it was made up of 60 percent JD(S) defectors — i.e., Siddaramaiah loyalists. And with it, he also notched up an impressive array of internal enemies. This is the brief historical backdrop to the current Karnataka elections. On the campaigning front, the Congress began with gusto while the BJP took a measured approach, reserving its energies for the last leg. However, it sorely lacked three crucial elements. One, a central poll pitch would resonate with the voters. Its manifesto was a mix of rehashing and imitation. Freebies and brazen copying from the AAP’s playbook. Two, a robust and committed leadership, both at the state level and from Delhi. Unlike the 2018 polls, Rahul Gandhi’s presence in Karnataka was conspicuous by the distance he maintained from it. Three, over the last ten days or so, the Congress ground force had dwindled to just a trickle. Congress insiders have attributed this to a lack of funding, some even claiming that a lot of money was poured in to financing Rahul Gandhi’s disastrous Bharat Jodo Yatra. Notwithstanding this, this has a practical dimension. An extremely feeble Congress cannot afford to compete on the ground with a cadre-based party like the BJP with this pathetic level of preparation and homework. A big reason for the BJP’s success is the fact that a significant chunk of its workers do not campaign for it solely for monetary reasons. On points two and three above, the BJP clearly has an edge. Narendra Modi is still its greatest vote-catcher and the tremendous response to his rallies across the state indicate precisely this. Other star campaigners like Yogi Adityanath, Himanta Sarma and Annamalai have pitched in with their respective might. All three have proven track records as strong-willed and popular leaders with relatively clean balance sheets. On the contrary, both Siddaramaiah and DK Shiva Kumar have tainted baggages which they can’t easily wipe off. This is precisely what the BJP is attacking. If that was not enough, the Congress, habituated to an outdated electoral grammar, scored several distinctive hit-wickets. Kharge’s snake-slur against Modi was one. But perhaps the most expensive one was the promise to ban the Bajrang Dal. It should take suicidal levels of genius to include this line item in the Congress manifesto. And in both cases, the panicked Congress embarked on face-saving antics in less than twenty-four hours. But learning nothing from these fiascos, the Congress rushed headlong and published a tweet about Sonia Gandhi “saving” Karnataka’s “sovereignty.” Another cherry ripe for the BJP’s picking. Narratives are paramount in an era of information overload. And the Congress clearly has no overarching narrative or a central theme when contrasted with a BJP which remains firmly moored in its core ideology. It is this ideological anchorage that helped the BJP tide over its decade-long political wilderness from 2004-2014 when the Congress appeared unchallengeable. And it is precisely for the lack of any ideology that the Congress has reached the brink of extinction. Election after election over the last nine years have revealed that the Congress desperately hangs on to any straw that promises to put it in power. Planning to ban the Bajrang Dal and “protecting” Karnataka’s “sovereignty” are signs of desperation, not confidence. Specifically, both these items are variants of a vintage   Extreme Left plot of breaking India, now repackaged as “United States of South India.” As for the Janata Dal (Secular), it has been reduced to a fringe player, sapped of energy and willpower. What is notable this time is its muted rhetoric about “protecting” the “minorities.” This had been one of its traditional electoral gambits. Roughly after the 2019 general elections, the BJP has been making serious inroads into the JD(S) strangleholds in the Old Mysore region and has met with rather impressive success. The near-zero coverage of the JD(S) even in the Kannada media is likely a harbinger of its future. In the overall assessment, the BJP seems to have edged past the Congress in an extremely complex contest. The Narendra Modi blitz and Congress self-goals in the last leg of the campaign are big contributors to this change. A surprise factor might be the fifty-two fresh candidates who have been given tickets by the BJP. This resembles the same experiment that it tried and succeeded with aplomb in Gujarat. The other theme that could swing the polls its way is its repeated emphasis on sampoorna bahumat — absolute majority. Which makes sense and brings us back to an earlier point. For the better part of the last 15 years, the BJP in Karnataka never got its act together in a cohesive manner. The emphasis on full majority is clearly aimed at severing this legacy. Narendra Modi and the central party leadership might well deliver this full majority but that would be just half the battle won. The real challenge is to discover, groom and support a state leadership that will not only rejuvenate the state unit but ensure stability and good governance to Karnataka. Karnataka is the inheritor of a noble legacy for nearly three centuries. This is an inheritance which got the (erstwhile) Mysore State the honoured moniker of “model state.” It has given India a long line of distinguished administrators, educationists, businessmen, scientists and cultural stalwarts. Their edifying lives and legacies have been archived, and the patient researcher will discover veritable treasures therein. And for more than half a century, the Congress has squandered this heritage. In this light, if the voter gives a hung verdict on 13 May as the exit polls predict, it will be respectable for the BJP to sit in the opposition and attend the gym regularly to strengthen itself for the next five years. The author is the founder and chief editor The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.