A more interesting election ahead

Both the Congress and BJP have huge political investments in Karnataka, but the lines between their supporters have blurred over the years

With the elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh done and dusted, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) eyes will now swivel to Karnataka, where Assembly polls are due in six months.

Both parties have their share of leadership problems. The state presidentship of BJP MP Nalin Kateel ended in August this year. Since then, there is no word from the party on his replacement. A year after being ejected from the chief minister’s post in July 2021, B S Yediyurappa, arguably the tallest BJP leader in Karnataka, was rehabilitated by his inclusion in the BJP Parliamentary Board, which is the party’s highest decision-making body. But what Mr Yediyurappa really wanted was his son Vijayendra to be installed in some position of responsibility in the party set-up. That hasn’t really happened. Mr Yediyurappa countered Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra as best as he could. But the yatra was more successful than most expected.

In the Congress, leaders, beset as they are with challenges posed by central investigating agencies, have their own problems. Party leaders say the new-found unity between Congress state unit chief D K Shivakumar and former chief minister Siddaramaiah should not be overinterpreted —it is at best an optical illusion. That new Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is from Karnataka and that he has political capital of his own in the state add to the pressures. Add to the mix, the unpredictability of the Janata Dal (S), led by (however nominally now) H D Deve Gowda, and you have a complex, potentially incendiary political situation in the state.

The tension on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border is one manifestation of the high stakes parties have in the upcoming polls. Maharashtra-Karnataka clashes are nothing new. The Karnataka government tried to take matters into its own hands by declaring Marathi- and Kannada-speaking Belgaum (now Belagavi) as the state’s second capital. But the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti has not been idle, either. This region is seething with passion — and while you can control politics, you cannot always control feelings.

Of all the regions in Karnataka, possibly the most interesting is Dakshina Kannada, dominated by Mangalore, or Mangaluru as it is now called. The region’s socio-economic development and politics are an outcome of telescoped rapid change. Mangalore is a city of the rich and the beautiful (both Aishwarya Rai and Sunil Shetty belong to this city) and is home to many educational institutions. It has given rise to a burgeoning middle class. But the very poor — bidi rollers, fishermen, weavers and wage labourers, and backward communities — also live here.

The change in social and economic relations began in the 1970s largely during the regime of Devaraj Urs, considered a legendary leader in the state, with land reforms, which created space for backward castes to claim new identities. For example, the Billavas, a toddy tapper community, were able to claim an identity as traders, businessmen, politicians, hoteliers, etc. At the other end of the spectrum, the Jains of Karnataka, who were given huge tracts of land during medieval times in return for their loyalty to feudal dynastic rulers, lost the greater part of their holdings. This has led to a massive socio-economic upheaval in the region.

In the past — loosely — the backward and poor used to constitute the support base of the Congress while the BJP voters were the upper castes, including Saraswat Brahmins; and the Bunts (small feudatories with large landed interests). But over the years, because of social and economic mobility, these lines have blurred. Today, almost all the cooperatives in the coastal belt — be it arecanut, coconut, land development bank, or district cooperative banks — have been taken over by elements sympathetic to Hindutva. Since 1994, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts have contributed a majority of the BJP legislators. In the 2018 Assembly elections, these regions yielded 16 seats for the BJP. The Congress, which had 13 from this region earlier, could win only three. The Prime Minister was in Mangalore in September and launched projects worth around Rs 4,000 crore.

The Old Mysore region has been a bastion of the JD(S). But this is changing. In 2018, the BJP got 22 seats while the Congress managed 32 and the JD(S) 31. With 89 Assembly constituencies of the 224 in the state, this region is crucially important for all parties. On the border of Telangana lies the Andhra-Karnataka region, dominated by rich mining barons. In 2018, it was the Congress that had a majority there, winning 21 seats of the 40 while the BJP could get only 15. Central Karnataka, comprising regions like Shivamogga (the home town of both Mr Yediyurappa and BJP Organising Secretary B L Santhosh) the BJP got 24 seats in 2018 and the Congress just 11. Bengaluru city has been a BJP bastion and this is unlikely to change.

The point is: Both the Congress and BJP have huge political investments in Karnataka. And the Congress is virtually bird-dogging the BJP. In the circumstances, BJP leaders are at a loss to understand why the central party is not doing more to resolve leadership problems and Congress workers are wondering how the party will go forward in consolidating the gains of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Watch Karnataka politics. It is likely to be the most interesting — and important — election coming up next.