Victory Is Just A Number

Here바카라�s the story so far: Raj Bhavan has given the BJP 15 days to prove it has a majority바카라�the party has only 104 seats out of 222 seats where elections were held. So, the thorny path ahead, as previous experiments with hung assemblies suggest, is strewn with the possibilities of 바카라�resort politics바카라�, constituti­onal conundrums and 바카라�Operation Lotus바카라�, which is the local slang for engineering defections. The JD(S)-Congress combine, which is safely over the halfway mark with 117 seats and has staked claim to form a government, is fuming. The battle for Karnataka is wide open and turning nasty.

If the BJP could stitch up coalitions in Goa and elsewhere despite being a minority, why is it objecting to it in Karna­taka, is the question the JD(S)-Congress camp is asking. 바카라�We have to protect our MLAs because they (BJP) are capable of doing anything. Do you think we want to sit in a resort beca­use we haven바카라�t any other work,바카라� asks H.D. Kumaraswamy, the JD(S) chief ministerial candidate, who has accused the BJP of luring partymen with huge money. 바카라�We바카라�ll face things as they come.바카라� The BJP, on its part, maintains that poaching and horse-trading aren바카라�t its business. 바카라�It is what the Congress and JD(S) are famous for,바카라� counters the BJP바카라�s Prakash Javadekar, denying the allegations. But the BJP didn바카라�t explain how it will get the numbers it currently lacks.

Kumaraswamy had, at a press conference on Wednesday, explained that his decision to go with the Congress, in a way, corrects his one-time dalliance with the BJP (in 2006) and proves his party바카라�s secular identity. 바카라�I think I바카라�ve got a chance now to erase the black mark on my father바카라�s political career because of my previous act (of going with BJP). So, I바카라�ve deci­ded to go with the Congress,바카라� he told reporters.

Kumaraswamy, 58, went on to say that the governor has rec­eived his claim to form a government. 바카라�We have given a list of 117 legislators with their signatures to him,바카라� he added.

The Congress and JD(S) had fought elections as bitter rivals. (Recall Rahul Gandhi바카라�s jibe calling it the B team of the BJP.) But it appears the Congress had Plan B already worked out, seeing that it deployed seniors Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ashok Gehlot a day before votes were counted. When it became clear that the BJP would fall short of majority, the Congress, with uncharacteristic speed, offered JD(S) support to form government. And so, outgoing chief minister Siddaramaiah and the JD(S) chief ministerial candidate H.D. Kumaraswamy바카라�whose mutual dislike for each other is otherwise a subplot of Karnataka politics바카라�came together to face the cameras. The JD(S), out of power for a decade, won 37 seats, thanks to a Vokkaliga consolidation in south Karnataka, while its alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) pocketed one seat.

Siddaramaiah, 69, was defending the Congress바카라� last big state in the south and staring바카라�as Prime Minister Narendra Modi taunted in his poll campaign바카라�at the prospect of his party being reduced to PPP (Punjab-Pondicherry Parivar). Going into the election, the odds for his party were formidable: fighting on one side the fearsome BJP war machine and, on the other, the weight of history. The Karnataka voter hasn바카라�t been kind to a sitting CM or ruling party in over three decades.

But the Karnataka verdict actually shows how the BJP has recouped from a splintered party unit it was in 2013 and looks more like the brawny outfit it was in Karnataka a decade ago. Even though the Congress got more votes (38 per cent), the BJP바카라�s 36.2 per cent slice of the pie won it more seats.

바카라�We didn바카라�t lose a region, we didn바카라�t lose any votebank. But here and there we lost some seats that we could have won,바카라� says a senior BJP functionary. The BJP바카라�s big wins came in coastal and central Karnataka, where it swept through seven districts by winning 37 out of 45 seats in a region where Hindutva and Lingayat sentiment are strong. Then, of course, the booster dose by the PM, whose whirlwind campaign in the final ten days to the election, many reckon, did the trick. 바카라�If it weren바카라�t for Modi바카라�s campaign, the BJP wouldn바카라�t have got so many seats,바카라� rues a JD(S) supporter outside former PM H.D. Deve Gowda바카라�s residence in Bangalore where a crowd was swelling by evening on Tuesday, even as the crackers at the BJP바카라�s office in another part of town fell silent.

Many would agree with that. To begin with, says political analyst Sandeep Shastri, there was sharp polarisation among voters between the Siddaramaiah government and the Modi regime at the Centre, but the anti-Congress votes appear to have gravitated to the BJP after Modi entered the fray. 바카라�Our study shows that as on April 30, there was something like a 5 percentage point lead the Congress enjoyed over the BJP. From May 1 to 12, that steeply dropped바카라�to one-and-a-half per cent,바카라� he says. This squeezing of the lead, Shastri believes, was because of the PM바카라�s 20-plus rallies.

Add to that the intense grassroots reach of the BJP and RSS cadres. At least 6 lakh people had been deployed for booth-level work across the state, says the BJP functionary. 바카라�Even on polling day, we were able to contact many of them,바카라� he says. So the land, as he put it, 바카라�was tilled and ready for sowing바카라�. 바카라�Modi came and sowed. It wasn바카라�t like it was barren land where he came and did magic,바카라� he says.

The last Karnataka CM to return to power after a full term (in 1978) was the late D. Devaraj Urs, whom Siddaramaiah looks up to as a role model. Like Urs, Siddaramaiah was relying on the backward class-Dalit voters along with min­orities to replicate that feat, besides a slew of welfare schemes his government had implemented. 바카라�The first thing is that the dominant castes have dominated Karnataka바카라�s politics,바카라� says Harish Ramaswamy who teaches political science at Karnatak University in Dharwad, pointing to how the Lingayats backed the BJP and the Vokkaligas in the south stayed with the JD(S). Experts say the BJP바카라�s seat tally in the Lingayat heartland suggests that Siddaramaiah바카라�s gambit to split the community바카라�s vote by offering them minority-religion status has backfired. As proof, they point out that several Lingayat ministers at the forefront of the cause have lost their seats.

바카라�The Lingayat factor has very badly backfired on the Congress,바카라� reckons Shastri, who thinks the Congress lost바카라�on a comparison with the 2013 results바카라�whatever little support it had among the community. A Congress leader, however, offers a counter-view, saying the issue stemmed Lingayat consolidation to a large extent. 바카라�It created some kind of stumbling block for a high-speed vehicle,바카라� says this person. He바카라�s of course referring to B.S. Yeddyurappa, the BJP바카라�s 75-year-old chief ministerial candidate who holds enormous clout among the Lingayat community. Otherwise, there would have been a wave in favour of Yeddyurappa, he admits.

The Lingayat minority religion issue operated at multiple levels, says Ramaswamy. 바카라�At the intellectual level, people welcomed it. For others, especially in the middle class, they wanted an identity. But at the mass voter바카라�s level, they never understood the problem,바카라� he says.

Still, the Congress did reasonably well in the Hyderabad-­Karnataka region in the northeast, which has a Lingayat presence, and especially so in Bellary district where it was up against B. Sreeramulu, a popular leader of the Valmiki Nayaka scheduled tribe, and the Reddy brothers. In Bangalore, where the BJP expected a higher tally, the Congress held on firmly.

Of course, anger at sitting MLAs has been the undercurrent in many places across the state. For instance, in one constitu­ency in Raichur district, where the JD(S) replaced the Congr­ess, the argument that one heard was, 바카라�Siddaramaiah has done work, but what has the local MLA done for us?바카라� Given that 10 ministers lost their seats, the message was clear, says comme­ntator Narendar Pani. 바카라�It바카라�s an anti-incumbency vote.바카라�

By Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore