The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has scored a remarkable victory by holding on to a majority of the seats it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, pushing the Congress, which is in power in the state, into a sticky situation.
The BJP’s win in 16 seats and two more by its alliance partner Janata Dal (Secular) out of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state indicates that voters have chosen a strong central government and the objective of seeing Narendra Modi as Prime Minister for a third term, rather than evaluating the Congress’s performance.
The Congress won 9 seats in a fight for prestige this time against the ruling BJP at the Centre and had pitched its campaign on the five guarantees that clicked and gave it a resounding victory of 135 seats out of the 224 in the state.
The BJP, which had won an unprecedented 25 out of the 28 constituencies in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, now sees itself on firmer ground and with renewed confidence after this win, though it would have to assess the constituencies where it faced losses.
The Congress was reduced to single digits (9 seats), indicating that a win in the state polls and the five guarantees on which it pinned its victory had no bearing on this election. This also indicates that PM Modi remains more popular in Karnataka than the Congress’s guarantees.
“Once again the numbers indicate that the voters vote differently in Lok Sabha and assembly polls,” said political analyst Sandeep Shastri. “The Modi factor seems to have had an impact and internal contradictions in the state BJP were papered over by the leadership factor.”
Prestige battle
The Lok Sabha election in Karnataka was a major prestige battle between the two main contenders, the Congress and BJP. The latter had formed an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular), primarily to gain the elusive support of the major caste group of Vokkaligas in southern Karnataka. This is the community that the Deve Gowda family is said to have a firm hold over and one that deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar, who also belongs to the clan, is seeking to control.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the JD(S) netted just one seat, Hassan — vacated by JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda to field his grandson, Prajwal Revanna. This was the only seat that the JD(S) won. The BJP secured the support of the lone independent candidate from Mandya, Sumalatha Ambareesh. Just like the JD(S), the Congress too had bagged just one seat, Bengaluru Rural, where DK Suresh, the deputy CM’s brother, had contested and won thrice before.
JD(S) performance
In this election, the JD(S) partnered with the BJP and contested in three seats — Mandya, Hassan, and Kolar. The JD(S) won two of the three seats, losing its stronghold Hassan to the Congress.
All eyes were glued to see how the JD(S) fared in the Hassan Lok Sabha seat from where Prajwal Revanna, the MP accused of sexually exploiting several women, had contested. Prajwal was recently arrested by a special investigation team as part of the probe into these allegations.
Prajwal lost the seat by over 40,000 votes to Shreyas Patel. This constituency saw a very tight contest. Patel had lost by a thin margin in the assembly polls and was hoping to secure this seat, especially in the backdrop of the sex scandal.
The Mandya seat won by HD Kumaraswamy reiterates the fact that the Vokkaligas of southern Karnataka are still with the Gowda family and support the JD(S) decision to align with the BJP.
Kumaraswamy who has a firm hold in this region had also appealed to people to vote in favour of the JD(S) as the party struggles to survive following defeats in the assembly polls and stung by a series of scandals.
The tagline “Kumaranna ge mantri madu beku, Modi ji ke pradhani madu beku (Kumaranna must be made union minister and Modi ji must be made PM)” seems to have clicked.
Kumaraswamy won by a handsome margin of over 2,05,000 votes.
The Kolar seat was won by JD(S) candidate MS Mallesh Babu by 71,338 votes.
The performance in Karnataka holds much importance for the BJP as, among the five southern states, Karnataka is where the BJP not only opened its first account in the south but also has been in power thrice (2006, 2008, 2019), a feat it has not managed in any other southern state. Karnataka has been termed the gateway to the south by the party, and this win of …. seats is credited to the organizational prowess of the party and the BJP’s top leadership’s calculated strategy. Having lost power and performed poorly in the 2023 elections in Karnataka, the BJP will now look at tightening its state unit, which has been hit by internal dissent and revolt by a handful of senior party leaders.
BJP victory a shot in the arm for BY Vijayendra
The BJP’s victory in this election means that BY Vijayendra, who took over the reins of the Karnataka unit six months before the Lok Sabha polls, has managed to consolidate his position as the party chief and get the house in order, especially at a time when the cadres were low on morale after winning just 66 out of the 224 assembly seats. The central leadership appointed him as the state president considering two major factors — firstly because he is the son of the former chief minister and Lingayat strongman BS Yediyurappa, and secondly, the party needed a young face from the dominant community to lead it during the elections.
Vijayendra’s appointment led to a revolt by veteran BJP leader KS Eshwarappa, who was offended that his son, Kanthesh, and he were denied tickets in the state polls as well as the Lok Sabha elections. Eshwarappa contested as an independent candidate from the Shimoga Lok Sabha seat against Vijayendra’s brother and four-time MP, BY Raghavendra.
This time, three former chief ministers of Karnataka were in the fray.
In an internal decision to field fresh faces as well as winnable candidates, the BJP replaced more than half its incumbent MPs, accommodating some leaders who had lost in the assembly elections, including former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai. Bommai, under whose leadership the BJP fought the 2023 assembly polls and lost, contested from Gadar-Haveri and won.
Jagadish Shettar, in a disgruntled state, had jumped to the Congress during the assembly polls after being denied a ticket by the BJP. He returned to the BJP fold to be offered the Belgaum Lok Sabha seat.
Shettar who was expected to fight a tough battle found himself comfortably sailing through with over 1.60 lakh votes.
The BJP also made a critical decision of dropping at least three of its firebrand leaders like Nalin Kumar Kateel, Ananth Kumar Hegde, and Pratap Simha, among others, to field new faces and ensure a caste balance, especially in the coastal Karnataka and old Mysore regions. This also worked in favour of the party as Dakshin Kannada from where Kateel was replaced by Capt Brijesh Chowta saw the latter winning by over 1.5 lakh votes. The BJP which has been consistently winning the constituency since 1991, retains its hold for the ninth consecutive term since it was won by the late Dhananjay Kumar (1991, 1996, 1998, and 1999) and later by former union minister and chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda who won in 2004, followed by Nalin Kumar Kateel who held the seat for two terms.
In the Uttar Kannada seat, six-time MP Ananth Kumar Hegde who has put the BJP in an embarrassing situation multiple times including his famous statements of “changing the Indian Constitution” was replaced by former speaker Vishweshwar Kageri. Having replaced Hegde, the senior BJP leader likened himself and Hegde to a pair of oxen who would work towards the party’s victory in the constituency.
Kageri won by more than 1.6 lakh votes against Congress’s Anjali Nimbalkar, a former MLA from Belagavi’s Khanapur.
The Mysore-Kodagu Lok Sabha seat was earlier represented by BJP’s Prathap Simha. Two major factors, anti-incumbency and the Parliament attack controversy forced the hand of the BJP leadership to drop Simha and replace him with the erstwhile scion of the Mysuru royal family Yaduveer KC Wadiyar.
Yaduveer won the seat by a margin of 1.39 lakh votes.
Dynastic politics
The Congress had given tickets to over a dozen candidates whose family members were either ministers, MLAs, or MPs. This also included fielding sons, daughters, and relatives of Congress ministers in the present Siddaramaiah government, such as Mrinal Hebbalkar (son of Laxmi Hebbalkar), Sowmya Reddy (daughter of Ramalinga Reddy), Priyanka Jarkiholi (daughter of Satish Jarkiholi), Sunil Bose (son of HC Mahadevappa), Samyuktha Patil (daughter of Shivanand Patil), Sagar Khandre (son of Eshwar Khandre), DK Suresh (brother of DK Shivakumar), Radhakrishna Doddamani (son-in-law of Mallikarjun Kharge), Star Chandru (father-in-law of Sharath Bache Gowda), and Prabha Mallikarjun (wife of SS Mallikarjun).
Candidates like Mansoor Ali Khan (son of former MP Rahman Khan), Prof Rajeev Gowda (son of former speaker MV Venkatappa), and Geeta Shivarajkumar (daughter of former CM S Bangarappa) also contested.
Not just the Congress, but the BJP too had its fair share of dynasts or former ministers getting tickets, including CN Manjunath (son-in-law of HD Deve Gowda), BY Raghavendra (son of BS Yediyurappa), Yaduveer KC Wadiyar (son of former MP Srikanth Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar), Basavaraj Bommai (son of former CM SR Bommai), Gayatri Siddeshwara (wife of former union minister GM Siddeshwara), and Tejasvi Surya (nephew of MLA Ravi Subramanya).
Bengaluru BJP’s bastion
Bengaluru has four Lok Sabha seats: North, South, Central, and Rural. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won all four seats, making Bengaluru the party’s bastion.
The Bengaluru Central seat was at first the biggest upset for the BJP this time. The Lok Sabha seat which was formed only in 2009, has been a BJP fortress as PC Mohan, the party candidate, has won Here thrice and was seeking re-election for the fourth time. He was contesting against Congress’s Mansoor Ali Khan, who had earlier fought from the Bengaluru North seat in 2019. Mansoor who was in the lead by over 50,000 votes till the last two rounds of counting, lost the election to Mohan who suddenly got back in the race with more than 52,000 votes. This happened when ballots of two city constituencies Mahadevapura and CV Raman Nagar were opened. In a total twist to the tale, just like a cinema thriller, Mohan was declared the winner with a lead of 32,707 votes.
One of ten major upsets for the Congress was when the BJP managed to breach into the grand old party’s fortress of Bengaluru Rural with Dr CN Manjunath, the saffron outfit’s new face and son-in-law of former PM Deve Gowda. This seat, which was initially part of the Kanakapura Lok Sabha segment, was carved out in 2008 following the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies. Since then, it has been the fortress of DK Suresh, who sought re-election for the fourth time but lost to Manjuanth.
Voters clearly made the decision to give their mandate in favour of Dr Manjunath who won by over 2 lakh votes.
The BJP was hoping to wrest the seat away from the DK brothers’ clutches and consolidate its complete hold over Bengaluru, a wish that the voters seem to have given their mandate in favour of.
The Bengaluru South seat, which is represented by BJP’s firebrand youth leader Tejasvi Surya who was seeking re-election, has been the fortress of the party since 1991. He contested against Congress’s Sowmya Reddy, who lost to the BJP in the 2023 assembly elections from the Jayanagar seat.
Tejasvi won the Bengaluru South seat by 2,65, 269 votes against Reddy.
Bengaluru North, which had largely been the stronghold of the Congress from 1952 until 1999, also became a BJP bastion after it was won in 2004 by HT Sangliana. This time, the seat saw a hot contest between BJP union minister Shobha Karandlaje and Congress’s Rajeev Gowda who is also a former Rajya Sabha member. Former union minister DV Sadananda Gowda was replaced with Shobha by the BJP central leadership, a move that received criticism from some sections of the party.
Shobha won the seat by a margin of 2,59,476 votes.