Karnataka Elections 2023: Why direction of electoral sway in Old Mysore may determine who forms next state government

Addressing a rally in quaint, “town of toys”, Channapatna, Prime Minister Narendra Modi training his guns at the Janata Dal (Secular) lashed out calling the regional party the “B-team” of the BJP. Terming the JD(S) and the Congress as the reason for political instability in the state, the prime minister said, “Each vote to JD(S) will go to Congress and will bring instability.” A day later, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka Jairam Ramesh reversed the charge accusing the JD(S) of being the B-team of the BJP and of having a tacit understanding with the saffron party. Dismissing these statements only as a consequence of rising political temperature as the counting day nears would be missing the woods for the tree. Modi and Ramesh are not the only politicians from their parties who dubbed the JD(S) as a B-team during the election campaign. The timing and the place of Prime Minister Modi’s statement is significant. Channapatna in Ramnagara district is not just the assembly constituency of HD Kumaraswamy but it lies in the heart of the politically significant Old Mysore belt. In the 2018 elections, the JD(S) won three out of four seats of Ramanagara and the BJP failed to open its account. The timing of the statement - 10 days before the voting day as most opinion polls were predicting a hung assembly with a slight advantage for the Congress and as the BJP was trying to give one final push to its campaign with a Modi blitzkrieg highlights how crucial the Old Mysore region is. [caption id=“attachment_12587072” align=“alignnone” width=“300”] Performance of parties in Old Mysore in the last four assembly elections[/caption] Comprising the districts of Bengaluru Rural, Chikkaballapur, Chamrajnagar, Hassan, Kolar, Tumkuru, Mandya, Mysuru, Ramanagara and Kodagu; the Old Mysore region accounts for 61 of the 224 seats in the state. Traditionally, the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) have dominated the electoral landscape of the region. The BJP has been a marginal player in the region and has struggled to gain a strong foothold. A key reason behind the party’s failure to cross the majority mark in Karnataka on its own has been its dismal performance in this region. The party has never won more than 11 of the 61 seats in the region. The BJP’s not-so-promising electoral returns in this Vokkaliga belt have forced it to overcompensate by making up in other regions. Simply put, historically the BJP has had to target winning 60-65 per cent of the remaining 163 seats to come anywhere close to the magic figure of 113. But the party can no longer rely on this formula in this election. Firstly, the BJP is expected to incur some losses in other regions, especially the Mumbai-Karnataka region- the hotbed of Lingayat politics. Furthermore, it has been trying extremely hard to make inroads in Old Mysore and the efforts paid off in the last Lok Sabha polls. Up against an alliance of Congress-JD(S) which appeared formidable on paper, the BJP won six out of the eight seats from Old Mysore. To offset the losses that the party is likely to suffer in its traditional bastions and to give itself a realistic chance of securing a majority, the party realizes that it would have to perform well in the Old Mysore region. This election the party adopted its tried and tested multi-pronged approach to crack the code in the region: co-option of political elites from across the aisle, anti-dynasty politics rhetoric, the Hindutva pitch, the “double engine sarkar’’ card and its USP- Prime Minister Modi’s appeal. [caption id=“attachment_12587112” align=“alignnone” width=“300”] How Old Mysore has shaped the political fortunes of the JD(S): Vote-share analysis[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_12587152” align=“alignnone” width=“300”] How Old Mysore has shaped the political fortunes of the JD(S): Seat-share analysis[/caption] While the stakes for the ruling party might be high in Old Mysore, they are much higher for the JD(S). Karnataka’s only regional party, the JD(S) can more accurately be described as a sub-regional party that derives most of its support from the Vokkaliga-dominated Old Mysore region. An analysis of the last few assembly elections makes the party’s over-reliance on the region very clear. Across the state, the party has maintained a steady vote share of 18-20% winning about 30 to 40 seats with the exception of 2004 where it won its best-ever tally of 58 seats. But a lion’s share of the JD(S) seats tally and votes in every election have come from the region. While the Gowda-led party has never polled more than 20 per cent votes at the state level, in the 61 seats of the region its vote share has been between 30 per cent to 37 per cent. About 50 to 60 per cent of the total votes that the party has polled across the state in the last three elections have come from its bastion. An analysis of the JD(S)’ performance in Old Mysore and of the seats it won across the state further relies on how much the region determines the party’s electoral fortunes. The party’s strike rate is much higher in this region. In the last elections, 30 of the 39 seats that the party won came from the Old Mysore region. Had the JD(S) not performed so well here, winning about 50 per cent of the seats, Karnataka may not have had a hung assembly. In 2013 too, the party did well - winning 25 seats and almost 49% of the votes polled in these ten districts. The party won fewer seats in 2008 i.e. 17 but its vote share was about the same at 48%. So, what explains the JD(S) winning eight seats less in 2008 compared to 2013 despite an almost similar vote share? The reason was the split in the BJP. The break-away groups - BS Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Paksha and B Sriramulu’s Badavara Shramikara Raitara Congress dented the BJP’s vote share by a combined 12.5 percentage points. Considering the vote-share and seat-share trends of other recent assembly polls, it is fair to assume that had the BJP not suffered the double whammy caused by KJP and BSRC, it would have performed much better and stopped Congress from winning a simple majority leading to another hung assembly in the state. The seat-share and vote-share analysis of the last few elections clearly shows a trend that holds the answer to the question that is being asked repeatedly: Will Karnataka throw up a hung assembly again? If the JD(S) manages to win more than 25 seats in the OMR region, the state could see another hung assembly and the party is very likely to emerge as the kingmaker. The JD(S) and its first family realise that their survival hinges on their performance in these 61 seats. The party’s campaign exclusively focussed on the region. Kumaraswamy’s Pancharatna Yathra which extensively covered the constituencies in the region, welfare-centric promises for the farmers and youth, the party’s vocal stand on the State Irrigation Scheme were all steps to protect its home turf. Even the party’s repeated assertion that it is not fighting for 30 or 40 seats but for the complete majority and that it would emerge as the King and not Kingmaker were attempts to ensure that the national parties do not dent the party in its own backyard by raising the issue of instability and hung assembly. Its archrival in the region, the Congress relied heavily on two local faces, DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah who headlined its campaign to deliver the goods in the region. The combination seems potent- DKS could pull a substantial chunk of the Vokkaliga votes and Siddaramaiah could add the AHINDA votes to the party’s kitty. Elsewhere in the state the GoP might be locked in a bitter battle with the BJP but its chances of winning a majority on its own would depend on how well it fares against the JD(S) in Old Mysore. If the JD(S) manages to retain its bastion and win anything upwards of 25 seats in the region, it could once again emerge as the kingmaker. Should that happen, some post-poll surprises could be on the cards. In 2018 redux, the kingmaker might become the king again. Alternatively, the JD(S) might arm-twist the Congress into opting for a third face other than DKS or Siddaramaiah as the chief minister of the coalition. Siddaramaiah and the JD(S) have a rocky past and the JD(S) is unlikely to fancy the prospect of a Vokkaliga who is not from the first family or the party as the chief minister which might cost DK Shivakumar the top prize. Which way Old Mysore goes, would decide if it would be another case of ‘he who comes last, laughs best’ in Karnataka. The writer is an alumnus of Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College, Omkar Poojari is currently pursuing a Research Master’s degree in Politics at Sciences Po, Paris. 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.