“Victory has many fathers. Defeat is an orphan” said John Kennedy, US President in 1962, when the USA faced defeat in trying to attack Cuba. There will be many leaders claiming that they were responsible for the Congress Karnataka victory. Similarly, on the BJP side, there will be none who will own the Karnataka defeat.
A political victory requires many favorable factors. In Karnataka, Congress had many favorable factors and for the BJP, it was a perfect negative storm. The BJP is not a new party to Karnataka. Yet, there were many mistakes made
Factors favoring Congress:
1. Karnataka has a tradition of not giving a government second term since 1985. This means there is a strong tradition against giving a second term to the BJP.
2. The Congress worked as a united team and it had many senior leaders in Karnataka. Karnataka is a 2-party state, which the Congress and BJP dominate. In such states, the Congress is strong like in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
3. There is a 14% Minority vote, which votes against the BJP. This vote went wholesale to the Congress.
4. The Central Congress leadership did not interfere in a big way. It left decisions to state leaders. This helped in selecting good candidates.
5. The Congress was prepared to receive leaders from other parties. Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar and Deputy Chief Minister Savade are such examples, who suddenly left the BJP and joined the Congress.
6. The projection of State Congress leader D.K. Shiv Kumar as chief Minister brought the big Vokkaliga vote bank to Congress. Normally, the Vokkaligas vote strongly for Kumarswamy party. But this time, the Congress convinced Vokkaligas that Shiv Kumar will be chief Minister.
7. Similarly, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was able to win over backward classes by saying that BJP will have only Lingayat Chief Ministers and he was projected as a chief Minister. Thus, many backward class voters sided with the Congress.
8. The Congress waged a strong publicity campaign accusing the BJP of corruption and poor governance. The BJP Chief Minister was unable to return the attacks, as he did not seem to be a strong leader.
Factors which defeated the BJP:
a. Senior BJP leader Yeddyurappa was removed because the Central BJP sensed he had become un-popular and troublesome. But Yeddyurappa insisted that a Lingayat take his place and he selected a weak leader Basavaraj Bommai as Chief Minister. The defeat of BJP can be placed largely at Yeddyurappa’s door, as he selfishly foisted a weak Bommai as the Karnataka Chief Minister.
b. The Central BJP should have given more attention to Karnataka. It should not have depended merely on getting the 300 Lingayat Mutts support. The Central BJP should have been alert to the drifting State BJP government.
c. The State BJP should also have drawn attention of the Central BJP leaders that public were becoming hostile and prices should be brought down. The price rise of common items like gas cylinders and household items created a bad image of the BJP.
d. The BJP leadership should not have focused so much on highways, airports and such infra-structure. More investments should have been done to improve Benguluru’s transport and flood problems. The repeated flooding of Bengaluru by rains created a bad image.
e. Benguluru is the IT capital of India. The state and central government should have paid more attention to the IT sector and solving their problems. The IT sector felt ignored.
f. The BJP knows that the Opposition will take up the Karnataka- Maharashtra border problem before the election since Maharashtra has a BJP Government. There was hostility in that area too.
g. The BJP should have understood that upper most need was to give good governance. Whatever politics there might be, if the state government focused on good governance, it might have won the elections.
h. There was also no BJP strongman man like Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Chauhan, Assam’s Hemanta Sarma , UP’s Yogi Adityanath or leaders in Uttarkhand and Maharashtra. Such state-level strong BJP leaders manage their states. Karnataka BJP had only constituency-level leaders.
Narendra Modi and elections:
It is obvious that if Narendra Modi did not canvass in Karnataka, the result would have been much worse. The BJP workers started working after Modi started canvassing. The problem in Karnataka is that there were no state-level BJP leaders to use Modi’s leadership.
Future for BJP in Karnataka:
The BJP got a good percentage of votes and can create a team of strong local leaders. In 2014, when BJP won Parliament elections, Karnataka had a Congress government. In 2019, again when BJP won national elections, there was coalition government of Deve Gowda party and Congress. Yet, BJP won nearly all MP seats in Karnataka in both the elections.
The Congress Party should understand that it won Karnataka, which had only BJP and Congress. It was a local victory. Congress should not think it is an endorsement of the Gandhi family.
The BJP must seriously introspect and not ignore reasons for defeat. Narendra Modi is very popular. But BJP requires strong state leaders to harvest the votes! The BJP should accept responsibility and start correction of weaknesses