The verdict is clear – and a virtual slap on the face of the BJP for its omissions and commissions and its overdrive on the communal front in Karnataka. The Congress sweep in the assembly polls was more than expected though anti-incumbency sentiments were evident from the very start. For the Congress party, this morale boost came at the precise time when it was almost down and out at the national level and its spearhead, Rahul Gandhi, was targeted by the Modi government in questionable ways. The saffron party that went on a communal overdrive has been given such a drubbing that it would nurse this wound for a long time. It lost its only base in the South and brought shame to Prime Minister Narendra Modi too by making him run around the state with a begging bowl for votes. The huge dependence on Modi was a clear hint that the BJP’s state leadership and chief minister Basavaraj Bommai lacked the strength to take on the opposition.
For the BJP, this is the second state to go this way – after the Congress captured Himachal Pradesh from it in the November 2022 assembly polls. The saffron party famously keeps demonstrating that it is yet to have an organizational heft. Its chief ministers are poor performers and faceless men. It lost Maharashtra and retained Haryana by allying with a regional party. In Karnataka, as many as 11 ministers lost the polls, signifying the poor image of the outgoing government. Most BJP governments are non-performing. In state after state, the party is basking in the glory of Modi. But, the 72-year-old Modi is just three years away from likely political sanyas.
The Congress party played its cards well this time. However, its win in Karnataka is no more than a temporary reprieve. Bigger battles lie ahead before the 2024 Parliament polls. Assembly polls in Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and elsewhere are expected before the end of this year. All eyes would now be glued to those polls. The tricolour party has won the moral courage to take on the BJP in the coming polls by its decisive victory in Karnataka. Perhaps an understanding had been reached between the two party stalwarts – Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar – vis-à-vis the CM’s post and government formation, or that a new formula could be contemplated. Notably, their communities — Dalits and Vokkaligas respectively — have energetically backed the Congress this time. Only Bengaluru and the coastal region sided with the BJP. As for the JD Secular, it reduced its assembly seats substantially as did the BJP. Its leader HD Kumaraswamy could neither be king nor king-maker as he had hoped to be. Voters ensured as much.
