Bangalore: As we had predicted in our analysis of
exit polls on Monday, the Congress has come back to power in Karnataka
with an absolute majority, winning 121 out of 223 seats that went to the
polls on Sunday.
Surprisingly, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
is not even the sole second largest party, sharing the honours with
former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S). Former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) is a distant fourth with six seats.
The big story of the election is the three-way split in the BJP (B. Sriramulu’s
BSR Congress, or BSRC, being the other breakaway faction), which hit it
really hard. Our calculations show that had the BJP, the KJP and the
BSRC fought the polls as one party, the combine would have secured 87
seats while the Congress would have got only 91 seats—leading to a hung
assembly.
The three-way split of the BJP helped secure for the Congress nearly 30 additional seats.
In our analysis on Monday, we had remarked that most exit
polls had agreed that the Congress would get 37% of the popular vote,
and the JD(S) would get 20%. Incredibly, both these figures are bang on
target.
What the exit pollsters (or any opinion polls) failed to
account for was that the popular vote share of the BJP would fall to 20%
(most polls gave the party 23-27% of the popular vote), thus leading to
overestimation of the BJP’s performance in these elections. The KJP
secured 9% of the popular vote.
The other significant story in this election is the
decimation of the BJP in coastal Karnataka—its traditional
stronghold—where the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, its ideological
parent, has historically had a significant presence. Of the 19 seats in
coastal Karnataka, the BJP won only three, with the Congress winning 13
and the remaining falling to independents.
It is speculated that increasingly assertive Hindutva by
entities associated with the Sangh Parivar might be responsible for the
BJP’s reversals in these districts. Candidate selection by the BJP has
also been questioned.
The rise of independents and smaller parties is also
significant. In 2008, smaller parties had been completely wiped out
while only six seats had fallen to independents. This time around, the
Samajwadi Party has got one seat (won by former minister and actor C.P. Yogeshwar), while the Bahujan Samaj Party ran the Congress candidate close in another. Ashok Kheny,
promoter of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise, which is
constructing the controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor,
has been elected from the Karnataka Makkala Paksha, while farmers’
leader K.S. Puttannaiah has been elected from the Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha. Apart from this, nine independents have made it to the House.
So what does this mean for next year’s general election?
Karnataka has had a history of voting differently in state and national
elections.
For example, in simultaneous assembly and general
elections in 1999, the Congress had swept the assembly elections while
the BJP and its ally Janata Dal (United) got 22 out of the 28
parliamentary seats. In 2004, again in simultaneous elections, Karnataka
voted in favour of the BJP in parliamentary elections, while throwing
up a hung assembly.
So, hazarding a guess on parliamentary elections based on assembly election data is risky.
Nevertheless, if we sum up votes by party across
parliamentary constituencies, the current performance indicates that the
Congress will win as many as 23 out of 28 seats in next year’s
parliamentary election. The JD(S) will get four seats with the remaining
seat going to the BJP.
This also suggests the fragmented mandate in favour of
the BJP. Unlike the previous elections where it virtually swept central
Karnataka and Bombay Karnataka regions, this year they have been reduced
to two small pockets—in Bangalore city and Belagavi district, and the
odd seat elsewhere.
The iron ore-rich Bellary region, which the BJP had swept last time, has rejected the party completely, with mining baron Anand Singh being the sole carrier of the saffron flag in the region. Gali Karunakar Reddy, one of the famous Reddy brothers (his brother Gali Janardhan Reddy
is in prison in Hyderabad on charges of illegal mining) lost his seat
to the Congress. Janardhan Reddy did not contest the election.
The loss of the Reddy brothers, however, doesn’t put an
end to the presence of mining barons in the Karnataka assembly. Singh is
joined by his fellow mining industrialists the Lad cousins of the
Congress (Santosh from Kalghatgi in Dharwad district, and Anil from
Bellary city), both of whom have made it to the assembly.
It would also be pertinent to mention that among the top
10 candidates in these elections based on net worth (based on a list put
out by the Association of Democratic Reforms), seven have made it to
the assembly. This includes Priya Krishna, the Congress legislator from Govindarajanagar in Bangalore, who has declared assets of Rs.910 crore. Losers among this rich list include Anitha Kumaraswamy (wife of former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy).
AMIT KUMAR SINGH
PGDM - 2ND SEM
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