PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS
IN THE END, KARNATAKA WAS A FAMILIAR STORY. THE BJP’S BLITZKRIEG CAMPAIGN AND STAR CAMPAIGNER NARENDRA MODI’S LATE CHARGE TOOK IT TO THE CUSP OF VICTORY AGAIN
FFOR JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE covered the BJP campaigns, in both Gujarat and Karnataka, the contrast in mood has been stark: on December 17, 2017, a day before the Gujarat results, the party’s workers, of whatever rank, were in a state of high anxiety. On the eve of the Karnataka poll results, May 14, the mood was one of circumspect confidence. Some said the party would form the government with 130 seats, others predicted 120 seats but even the pessimists were certain the BJP would emerge as the single largest party.
In the event, the optimism proved reasonably valid. The BJP did emerge as the single largest party, of course, but it fell just short of a majority. It was unlucky to lose eight seats (exactly the number that would have given it a clear majority) by less than 2,500 votes. The Congress tally, on the other hand, slid from 122 to 78 seats. The real difference between the two parties was in the details: the Congress secured a slightly higher percentage of votes—37.9 per cent to the BJP’s 36.2 per cent—but the even spread of BJP’s votes due to better poll machinery at the grassroots and better poll management by party chief Amit Shah and his team delivered 104 seats compared to the Congress’s 78.
Clearly, antiincumbency against the Congress on various counts played a big role in the BJP’s win. But yet again, it was the potent combination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah that proved decisive, bringing the party within reach of its 21st state government. Meanwhile, the Congress has been to reduced to governing just two states and a Union territory in the country.
If the BJP manages to form and sustain a government in Karnataka, the party’s state governments will rule 64.4 per cent of India’s population, compared to the Congress’s 2.5 per cent—which is less than the Trinamool Congress (7.54 per cent), the AIADMK (5.76 per cent) and even the Biju Janata Dal (3.47 per cent). As Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar, the BJP’s incharge for the Karnataka elections, put it: “The Karnataka win was another great display of how PM Modi and party president Shah cornered an opponent after carefully studying the poll scenario and then charting out a sharp strategy.” Javadekar’s cocharge and Union railway minister Piyush Goyal adds: “Amitbhai’s macro and micro planning and his unparalleled hard work to convert the PM’s image into votes gave us this great lead.”
TWIN OUTREACH
Despite the element of hyperbole, Shah’s reputation as the ablest election strategist in the country is bound to be enhanced by the Karnataka results. This was evident from the day he began work here in January, immediately setting about to resolve issues between squabbling state leaders including B.S. Yeddyurappa. His energy and attention to detail were sustained through to the last 11 days of the campaign as he orchestrated the PM’s tour: 21 public rallies in six days, covering all the critical regions of the state. On the remaining four days of the campaign, Shah arranged for the PM to address lakhs of workers from various wings of the Karnataka BJP through the Narendra Modi app on their smartphones.
These BJP branches included the Yuva Morcha, the Mahila Morcha, the Kisan Morcha , the SC and ST Morchas among others. The PM’s call was beamed to the party faithful from all sections of society in Karnataka from the back office in Delhi. The speeches were also carried in heavy rotation by local channels with
the result that Modi dominated proceedings during the last days of the campaign. “Such use of technology is unprecedented,” says Amit Malviya, who heads the BJP’s IT cell. In fact, the BJP even distributed smartphones to the few workers who didn’t have any, so that they could join the party’s innovative outreach.
In public meetings, the prime minister concentrated on attacking the Congress, focusing on Rahul Gandhi and Siddaramaiah, who he singled out in characteristic barbs as “Mr 10 per cent”—alluding to allegations of corruption. In his address to party workers, by contrast, he reeled out the details of the work his government had done for the poor and how the BJP government at the Centre was writing a new chapter in governance when it came to fighting the twin national challenges of corruption and poverty. The corrupt, big and small, were on the run, Modi declaimed in a typical rhetorical flourish.
Shah, for his part, charted out a great strategy based on the weaknesses of the Congress and Siddaramaiah, on the one hand, and the pluses of the BJP, on the other. The Hindutva card was played subtly as Karnataka has a unique caste math dominated by Dalits, Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Shah visited 33 Hindu mutts during the course of the campaign including some Dalit ones. He also drafted Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, the party’s third most important campaigner in Karnataka, with an eye on the Kannadiga adherents of Yogi’s Nath sect. It made a difference in the Vokkaliga belt as Yogi visited the 1,400yearold Adichunchanagiri mutt of Mysore to meet its head Sri
THE BJP LOST EIGHT SEATS— WHICH WOULD HAVE GIVEN IT A CLEAR MAJORITY—BY LESS THAN 2,500 VOTES
Sri Sri Nirmalanandanatha Swamiji to enlist his support.
Inevitably, Yogi’s arrival also ramped up the rhetoric on ‘Muslim appeasement’ by the Congress, capitalising on Siddaramaiah’s plans to celebrate the Bahmani (kingdom) utsav and Tipu Sultan jayanti. The BJP campaign rested on the narrative that while celebrating Tipu jayanti Siddaramaiah had slashed funds for the Dasara celebrations and refused funds for the World Kannada Sammelan citing a cash crunch.
By combining such insinuations with allegations of corruption, Shah managed to tarnish the CM as ‘divisive’ and ‘corrupt’ in the eyes of many voters. The fact that Siddaramaiah, who seemed to be in command till the month of January, lost his traditional Chamundeshwari seat by over 36,000 votes and won his other seat, Badami, by just 1,696 seats, is a marker of Shah’s success in cornering his opponent in the poll’s final phase.
While the BJP was effective in capitalising on Yeddyurappa’s Lingayat base, the party may also have benefitted from help from an unexpected quarter: Siddaramaiah’s selfgoals. His attempt to divide the Lingayats by giving them minority status seems to have boomeranged. Shah and Yeddyurappa were quick to seize on the move as evidence of the CM and Congress’s cynical and divisive politics. Proof that it worked: the party’s three Lingayat ministers who had supported the move for minority status lost their seats.
Shah was like a man possessed in the last phase of the election, clocking in 57,135 kms, touching 28 of the 30 districts of the state, addressing 59 public meetings, holding 25 roadshows and 38 dialogues with different groups of society. There were also 18 big meetings of boothlevel party workers and 10 election meetings.