Karnataka bypoll disaster should force BJP rethink, but Amit Shah unlikely to change status quo ahead of 2019

Whichever way you look at it, the results of the Karnataka by-elections  Tuesday are bad news for BJP. By-elections were held on 3 November to five seats—three in Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats. Of these, the Janata Dal (Secular) and Congress not only retained the two Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat, but annexed a parliamentary seat of Ballari from BJP.

Of five seats that went to by-elections, BJP held two Lok Sabha seats, but retained only Shivamogga with a smaller margin, while losing Ballari by a huge gap. In other words, as far as these by-elections are concerned, the equation of Congress-JD(S) and BJP changed from 3-2 to 4-1.

This may not look so terrible on the face of it, but behind this simple scorecard lies a bigger story of disaster for BJP. The enormity of frustration within that party is evident from the laconic comments that came from senior state leader Suresh Kumar even before the results were fully out:

Time for genuine introspection.

— S.Suresh Kumar (@nimmasuresh) November 6, 2018

Time for our cadre based Organisation-Party to re-invent itself to get ready for the Major Exam.

— S.Suresh Kumar (@nimmasuresh) November 6, 2018

Overconfident BJP humbled

An overconfident BJP had almost hoped that the by-elections would mark the beginning of the end of the coalition government of Congress and Janata Dal (Secular). There were indeed questions over whether the coalition, hastily put together after the May Assembly elections, would be able to fight the coming Lok Sabha poll together. The conduct of the leaders of the two parties after they formed the government only confirmed the doubts over whether the post-poll coalition formed after the Assembly election can be an effective pre-poll alliance for the Lok Sabha poll, considering the differences within—and between—Congress and JD(S).

Whether the coalition can put up a united fight in the Lok Sabha election is still an open question, but the two parties have indeed passed the test of unity at least for now in these by-elections.

Will Yeddyurappa last?

On the other hand, the results have only thrown up some very vital questions over BJP’s own state of preparedness in Karnataka to face the 2019 election. Clearly, the party needs to do a lot to put its own house in order before picking faults with the coalition. And quite apart from the longevity of the ruling alliance, the question that is already being asked now is: how long will state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa last?

For the record, Yeddyurappa may take comfort from the fact that the net loss for BJP is the lone Lok Sabha seat of Ballari. But nobody doubts that the plight of the party is much worse than losing a single seat.

The BJP’s candidate in Ballari is J Shantha, the sister of B Sreeramulu, a close associate of the Reddy brothers of the notorious mining mafia. Sreeramulu won the seat for the party in 2014, but caused the vacancy after he resigned following his election to the Assembly in May. Congress candidate VS Ugrappa, an outsider to the constituency who enjoys a clean reputation, won the seat: Though with more than a little help from his party leader DK Shivakumar, better known for his “organisational skills” and his status as one of Karnataka’s richest men.

The Ballari result must teach BJP a lesson that Congress repeatedly learnt in the past: money power is not always a foolproof guarantee for election victories. A stronghold of Congress for long, Ballari elected Sonia Gandhi to Lok Sabha in 1999 but has been a BJP turf since 2004. Congress has now wrested it back in circumstances that BJP leaders admit are a shame to their party. Besides, BJP also paid the price for not putting up as united a front in Ballari and the other places as Congress and JD(S) did.

Even in Shivamogga, Yeddyurappa had the comfort of seeing his son BS Raghavendra win, but not as easily as expected. This vacancy too was caused by the resignation of Yeddyurappa from the Lok Sabha seat following his election to the Assembly in May.

The mess that BJP found itself in in the Ramanagara Assembly constituency was even worse. The victory of Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s wife Anita from there was a foregone conclusion, but it became doubly easy after the BJP candidate defected to Congress two days before polling! This led to internal protests within BJP over the unilateral way Yeddyurappa chose the candidate in the first place and fell into a trap, ignoring the advice of some party colleagues.

And this once again brings into the open Yeddyurappa’s overbearing style which party men have been complaining about for long. Though powerful sections of the party want nothing less than a change in the state leadership, it’s doubtful if party’s national president Amit Shah will disturb the status quo at least till the 2019 election, considering Yeddyurappa’s clout within his upper-caste Lingayats.

Shah’s own lack of comfort with Yeddyurappa is not a secret within the party. But the only thing that Shah may do, as the 2019 polls near, is that he may once again become the de facto state president himself, something he did before the Assembly polls this year.

JD(S)-Cong euphoria exaggerated

The sample offered by these elections is big enough for BJP to worry about the 2019 outcome, but too small for Congress-JD(S) to gain excessive confidence. The leaders of the two parties indeed put up a show of unity and threw their collective weight behind coalition candidates, but there was no matching enthusiasm from their respective workers on ground zero.

Dissatisfaction in Congress over leaving the Mandya and Ramanagara seats to JD(S) was all too clear. And the relatively low turnout of voters in the Lok Sabha constituencies that went to by-elections was attributed to a lack of interest among Congress workers in mobilising voters.

And there is no guarantee that the unity of coalition leaders will last long beyond the current successes. A cabinet expansion that is expected soon will be another test of this unity.

The victories of the coalition were helped as much by its strength as by the organisational flaws of BJP. That’s what must alarm BJP, known for its organisational finesse and micro-management of elections.