Modi magic fails to work in Karnataka

The BJP's rout in Karnataka Wednesday has taken some sheen off the party's poster boy Narendra Modi, who had been billed as a star vote-getter.

The Gujarat chief minister addressed only three public meetings, one each in Bangalore, Mangalore on the west coast and Belgaum in the north.

These public meetings came after days of speculation whether Modi, who led BJP to three consecutive wins in Gujarat, would take part in the campaign at all given the poor shape his party was in the state.

Official results still coming in indicate that he seems to have made no impact on the voters even in these three areas.

The Modi magic did not work even in the two coastal Karnataka districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada. Mangalore, about 350 km from Bangalore, is the main town of Dakshina Kannada.

The two districts had become BJP strongholds in the last decade.

In Dakshina Kannada district, the BJP lost seven of the eight assembly seats to Congress. In Udupi it won just one out of five. The Congress took three seats and an independent won one.

In 2008, the BJP had won eight of the 13 seats from the two districts and the Congress had secured five.

The BJP fared badly in Bangalore too, with trends indicating it may win only 12 of the 28 seats. In 2008, it had bagged 17.

In Belgaum, which has 18 seats, the BJP has taken possible winning leads in only eight seats as against the nine it won in 2008.