ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 The Defeat of Saffron in Karnataka SHIVASUNDAR Vol. 48, Issue No. 21, 25 May, 2013 Shivasundar ([email protected]) is a freelance journalist based in Bangalore. With the debacle of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Karnataka 2013 assembly elections, the Congress takes over the reins of the state. Blatant corruption, aggressive Hindutva and factionalism has led to the demise of the saffron party in the southern state. A region-wide analysis of the election results show that even though the gains of the Congress are not that dramatic, the voters have delivered a clear mandate. A political analysis of the results indicates a serious setback to the BJP. The 2013 assembly elections in Karnataka have arrested the southern expedition of the saffron brigade by giving a verdict against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The electorate of Karnataka has punished the vulgar display of corrupt and communal practices indulged in by the party after it came to power in 2008. Even though the verdict cannot be construed as a decisive rejection of either the Hindutva politics and corruption or the BJP as a party, considering the other equations at play, it is nevertheless a clear reflection of the resentment of the common man. The results prove, unambiguously, that Karnataka is not Gujarat, contrary to many Delhi-centric theories floated by the national media. There are as many fundamental differences between the two as there are superficial similarities. Though the defeat of the BJP was a foregone conclusion even before the election results were declared, the nature of the electoral performance of the party and a closer study of the nature of its defeat unveils how comprehensive and convincing the rejection of the party has been. While the 2008 victory was considered by the BJP as the opening of the gateway to south India, one can safely say that the gate is shut for some time to come. First, let us take a look at the numbers. Elections were held in 223 out of 224 assembly constituencies. The Congress won 121 seats establishing a simple, but comfortable majority and gained 41 seats over 2008. But the BJP’s performance was so abysmal that it 110 seats of the 2008 elections came down to a mere 40 in these present elections. Though the Janata Dal (Secular) [(JD(S)] also got 40 seats ‒ an improvement of 12 seats over the previous election ‒ its vote share was marginally higher than that of the BJP. Even though the election for the Piriyapatna constituency in Mysore District has been rescheduled for 29 May, it has never been a stronghold of the BJP, and the victory of the JD(S) or the Congress there is a foregone conclusion. There are of course moves and counter moves to attain the status of the prinicipal ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 opposition party in the Legislative Assembly. While Ashok Kheny, a first time MLA and a staunch opponent of Deve Gowda has offered to merge with the BJP to make it the principal opposition party, the JD(S) and the Badavara Shrakikara Raithara Congress (BSR) party of B Sriramulu, which got 4 seats, have sent signals of a merger to check this move. It is obvious that electorally the BJP has been set back by at least 20 years. If we recall, in the 1994 elections the Janata Dal had emerged victorious, and the BJP emerged as the principal opposition party having won 40 seats. The Congress stood third with 35 seats under its belt. An analysis of the vote shares in various constituencies reveals not just the magnitude of BJP’s defeat but how compelled the voters felt to choose an alternative to the BJP. Anti-incumbency of epic proportions The 2013 assembly elections witnessed a record voter turnout of 71.29%, the second highest since 1978 when almost 71.9% people voted. Out of the 3.12 crore votes polled, the Congress won 1.14 crore, or 36.55% of the valid votes polled; an improvement of 1.96% over its tally in the 2008 assembly elections. The JD(S) and the BJP both got got 62.32 lakh votes (though the former got a few more than the BJP). While JD(S) increased its vote share by a minor 0.65 %, the BJP saw a loss of 13.96 % of the vote share. To decipher what this vote share means, one has to look at the voter support. In the 2008 assembly elections the BJP was endorsed by 88.57 lakh voters. This time more than 26.25 lakh voters (30% of voters who voted for the BJP in 2008) did not vote for the party. There are multiple reasons for this rejection, and these vary from region to region. B S Yeddyurappa, who broke away from the BJP to form his own Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP), clearly affected the BJP's prospects in a few regions. The BSR Congress party of B Sriramulu, another breakaway faction of the BJP, also severely hurt the BJP in the central Karnataka region. But it is also true that the BJP vote base suffered a huge setback in many areas which were impervious to the Yeddyurappa factor. Lingayats Votes get divided in Mumbai Karnataka The major gains for the BJP in the 2008 elections came from the Mumbai Karnataka region where the dominant Lingayat community is numerically strong. When the BJP got 40 seats in 1994, a mere four seats came from this region. But by 2004, with Yeddyurappa heading the BJP, the tally in this region rose to 24 and then to 34 seats in 2008. The single biggest factor that helped the victory of the BJP in 2008 was the “betrayal” by H D Kumarasvamy (a Vokkaliga) in 2007 when he refused to vacate the chief minister’s post for Yeddyurappa, a ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 powerful Lingayat leader, as a part of the power-sharing agreement between the BJP and JD(S). Yeddyurappa used this to polarise the Lingayat votes in favour of the BJP in the 2008 elections. Even this time Yeddyurappa, after quitting the BJP and forming his own party, concentrated his campaign in this region with the singular agenda of teaching a lesson to “the party which stabbed him in the back”.1 The result was disastrous for the BJP. It could capture only 13 seats in the region, a loss of 23 seats as compared to its tally in 2008. Even its vote share decreased by 8.5%. While Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) could win only two seats here, it gained 10.3% of the total votes polled. The Congress also improved its vote share by a considerable 3.5% in this region. This suggests that the Lingayats did not support the KJP en masse and saw the Congress as a viable alternative to the BJP. Electoral History of Centrist, Rightist parties along with left parties in Karnataka from 1952-2013 Congress BJS/BJP SP/PSP/JNP/JD/JDS CPI CPM Ind * St Vt St Vt St Vt St Vt St Vt St Vt 1951 74 46.35 0 2.26 3 8.73 (SP) 1 0.91 11 25.79 (80) 1957 150 52.08 0 1.34 18 14.06 (PSP) 1 1.92 35 28.74 (179) 1962 138 50.22 0 2.29 20 14.08 (PSP) 3 2.28 27 17.31 (208) 1967 126 48.43 4 2.82 20 8.88 (PSP) 1 0.52 1 1.10 41 28.36 (216) 1972 165 52.1 0 4.3 24 26.2 (INC-O) 3 0.99 0 1.03 20 12.87 1978 149 44.25 59 37.95 (JNP) 3 1.99 0 0.5 10 7.51 (224) 1983 82 40.42 18 7.93 95 33.07 (JNP) 3 1.25 3 0.49 22 15.47 1985 65 40.82 2 3.88 139 43.60 (JNP) 3 0.9 2 0.86 13 9.47 1989 178 43.76 4 4.14 24 27.08 (JD) 0 0.59 0 0.54 12 8.12 1994 34 26.95 40 16.99 115 33.54 (JD) 0 0.23 1 0.49 18 9.66 1999 132 40.84 44 20.69 10 10.42 (JDS) 0 0.12 0 0.38 19 12 18 13.53 (JDU) 2004 65 35.27 79 28.33 58 20.77 (JDS) 0 0.1 1 0.37 13 6.8 5 2.6 (JDU) 2008 80 34.76 110 33.86 28 18.96 (JDS) 0 0.11 0 0.24 6 6.92 2013 121 36.55 40 19.97 40 20.09 0 0.03 0 0.35 ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Figures in the brackets after the year show the number of constituencies. (1951- Election to Mysore state- 80 constituencies. 1957- First election after Unification-179 constituencies. Number of Constituncies rised to 208 in 1962, to 216 in 1967 and to 224 in 1978) BJS- Bharatiya Jana Sangh till 1977, BJP- Bharatiya Janata party after 1980 The party among SP, PSP, JNP, JD and JDS which contested the elections in that particular year is referred to in the brackets. (SP- Socialist Party, PSP- Praja Socialist Party, SP- Socialist Party, JNP- Janata Party, JD- Janata Dal,JDS- Janata Dal (Secular) and INC (o)- Indian National Congress (Organisation)) Ind- Independents St- Seats won, Vt- Vote share Trounced in its Stronghold The two important regions where the BJP lost heavily, both electorally and politically, was in the Coastal Karnataka and the Malnad region.2 The Sangh Parivar has been working here for the last six decades and has been successful in cultivating a social base for its Hindutva ideology cutting across caste lines.