KARNATAKA ALSO UNDER MODI SPELL
The lotus is blooming again in Karnataka – almost. Though it has emerged as the single largest party, it failed to cross the half-way mark in the 224-member Assembly where two constituencies didn't vote. Nonetheless, it left the ruling Congress stunned and the JD-S licking its wounds in the third spot.
For the BJP, 104 seats is a dramatic jump from the 40 it won five years ago. The Con- gress, desperate to retain power in the state amid shrinking national appeal, was given another defeat on the platter (78 seats) with outgoing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah losing in Chamundeshwari to a JD(S) candidate, even as he retained Badami.
In fact, out of the 30 outgoing Congress Ministers, 16, including Siddaramaiah, were unceremoniously shown the door by the electorate.
While a detailed analysis can wait, it is apparent that two of the major chunks of voters that the Congress was banking on in Karnataka -Dalits and Lingayats – appear to have voted in large numbers for the BJP.
The Congress in 2013 rose to power in the southern state with a strong backing of minorities, backward classes and Dalits and the same coalition, ironically, led to its ouster in 2018. The party desperately tried to add to the coalition the Lingayat factor by granting religious minority status to the community — a move that didn't work to its advantage. Dalits and Scheduled Tribes in Karnataka are huge in numbers —- anywhere between 20 to 23 per cent, enough to make or break prospects of any political party wanting to come to power. In the 51 constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the BJP bagged just seven in 2013 while the Congress got 26 and JD-S 11. Result: the Congress had then secured an easy majority. And cut to 2018 that threw up a hung verdict – this time, Congress and the BJP were neck and neck winning 26 and 23, respectively, while JD (S) bagged 12.
Dalits have traditionally been supporters of the Congress but the BJP has successfully managed to break into the support bases, particularly since the 2004 polls when it managed a social engineering exercise to attract a section of Dalit voters - called the Left Dalits.The Left Dalits are considered the most marginalised among such communities. The Congress also tried to woo BJP Chief Ministerial face B.S. Yeddyurappa’s own caste — the Lingayats — a traditional BJP support base. They have influence in nearly 100 seats in the 224-member assembly and make up 17 per cent of the state's population.The Congress had hoped that that by playing the religious minority card, it would split the BJP's vote base as Lingayats appeared going back to Yeddyurappa after voting against him in 2013. But the experiment seemed to have failed.The BJP won from the majority of Lingayat dominated seats - mainly in north Karnataka (Hyderabad Karnataka) and parts of the central region.In 2013, when the Congress emerged a clear winner, it won 47 seats in Lingayata heartlands, as against the BJP’s 5.