Click to play videoThe BJP's three-point poll plank during the Assembly elections in Karnataka – ‘betrayal, inflation and terrorism' – thrashed the Congress' virtual one-point agenda of 'stability' in Karnataka.
The final tally showed the BJP had won 110 seats in the 224-seat Assembly while the Congress improved its tally since 2004, but the JD(S) ate away its votes.
With the fresh victory the BJP on Sunday extended a winning streak ahead of the General Elections due in early next year.
So what went wrong with the Congress and JDS in Karnataka? Did the anti-incumbency factor lead to BJP’s victory in the south of Vindhyas? Or was it the great betrayal by the Gowdas and the JDS that led to the saffron party flying its flag high in the state?
Experts and politicians from across party lines took part in a marathon debate with CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai and political analyst Yogendra Yadav to delineate the Assembly elections in Karnataka.
The panel of experts comprised of Congress leaders Kapil Sibal and Prithviraj Chavan, BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Prakash Javadekar, Executive VP of Cranes Software Rajeeva Karandikar, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta and Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh.
BJP claims south poll
Jaitley, who micro-managed the BJP’s election campaign in Karnataka, said there were several factors that enabled his party to reach 110 seats from 79 in the last Assembly elections.
“We had a leader in Yeddyurappa who added value to the party’s campaign. He helped in expanding the party’s social base. We also focussed on issues like stability within the state, which had a direct link to politics of opportunism and the betrayal by JDS. We also focussed on price rise, farmers’ plight and the Centre’s soft policy on terrorism,” Jaitley explained.
Comparing the Congress’s campaign with the BJP in Karnataka, he said, “Five of the BJP’s national leaders addressed election rallies in the state in the last one month, in comparison Congress’s campaign was quite modest.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had addressed just one rally in the state while Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi went for a quick tour. So, is election management one of the many problems ailing the Congress?
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Candidly accepting the fact Sibal said, “The BJP does run a better campaign. There decision of choosing candidates was well in advance than ours. Of course in Yeddyurappa they had a Lingayat leader and so they swept all of central Karnataka.”
“There are lots of things that we need to introspect on. Even though we held our vote bank and our vote share it was a repeat of 2004 because of the division of the secular vote,” he added.
Taking into account the defeat that Congress suffered, should the Central leadership take blame because the people voted against the party because of issues like prise rise and its approach towards national security?
“This is a complete misinterpretation of the victory. BJP cannot claim that this win is a vote against the Central government,” Sibal said.
The Science and Technology Minister also cited some important reasons for the Congress’s drubbing in the hands of the BJP.
“When we went into the campaign we could say nothing against the BJP because they had never ruled the state. They had a 10-day rule and managed to get sympathy votes out of that episode. They are not at the Centre so we couldn’t attack them at that point. So in a sense we could not have a campaign against the BJP in this election,” he reasoned.
Jaitley agreed that a large part of the campaign was centred on the anti-incumbency of the Central Government. However, he explained that state elections are a combination of state and national issues. “Anti-incumbency is not a permanent rule of success. Congress ran that campaign in Gujarat but it did not succeed.”
In fact, when CNN-IBN approached voters in Karnataka it was found that their memory of the Dharam Singh Government was not good. It was also observed that BJP has an institutionalised power set-up in the state while Congress ran on individual powers.
Former chief minister of Karnataka SM Krishna, who was sent two months before the elections to the state, was supposed to consolidate the Congress’s campaign but he was not projected as the chief ministerial candidate and neither was he empowered enough. Is that one of the problems that the Congress faces of not knowing being sure of who should lead the state politics?
“This is an issue that the Congress has been grappling with over the years,” Sibal said.
“It has been the case in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh but that does not mean that we have lost all polls. In fact we did not project a leader in the Central Government level during the last Lok Sabha elections, but we still won,” he added.
However on the hindsight, Singh said that it’s not a bad idea to project a leader during the campaigning.
With this win it’s obviously a shift of momentum in national politics and BJP believes it’s all about “political marketing” now.
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“The Congress hasn’t smelled victory in the last two years. The next elections are Jammu and Kashmir and then we are likely to be the frontrunners in the next Lok Sabha elections,” Jaitley said.
However, Sibal debunked the loss in Karnataka as a verdict on the Centre and philosophically said, “If the ‘lotus’ blooms then it withers too. So victory is always momentary in politics.”
Is it, then, too early to suggest that this is a mandate against the Central Government?
Prakash Javadekar said state election is not a local election like a by-election. “State is a much greater unit where both the governments are put on test and voters cast their vote on the basis of various factors. At the local level, it was definitely reliable leadership, stability and good governance,” he explained.
CNN-IBN’s head of the National Bureau Diptosh Majumdar added that BJP, in hindsight, did function as an orchestra. Pointing out the fallacies in Congress’ campaign he said, “the hierarchical thing in Congress is not as clear as in the BJP. BJP has a clear mandate. Arun Jaitley had a role and he fulfilled it. There was not too much interference. But did Chavan have his say in Karnataka?”
“Absolutely,” Chavan said and added, “We had a team, which is called the screening committee. We had a democratic process of ticket finalisation, pradesh committee at the local level, screening committee to buffer that out and central election committee to select. The direction of the campaign wads unanimously agreed between the two or four of us. “
Highlighting the cause of party’s defeat he said that in the last four years, Congress ruled for 20 months. “That wasn’t a great rule because we were pulled from the back by Mr Deve Gowda. Then JD (S) ruled for 20 months, that was also not a great rule as we all know but both Congress and JD (S) has an element of anti-incumbency. The 20-month rule was attached to each, which the BJP did not have,” he said.
Yeddyurappa vs Krishna – why one worked and the other didn’t
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi goes aggressively on campaigns in Karnataka, Rahul Gandhi makes it part of its Discovery of India tour and yet party says the Central leadership must not accept responsibility for the Karnataka verdict.
Defending the Congress Chavan said, “I think it is because of the aggressive campaign by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, we increased our tally from 65 to 80. I’m not happy with that number but we have increased our vote share. Sympathy factor worked for BJP.”
Reacting strongly to the charges that not projecting a chief ministerial candidate proved fatal for the Congress, Chavan said, “Last time we had projected SM Krishna as the chief ministerial candidate and that necessarily did not ensure victory.”
“We had to continue with our social alliance in which all our leaders were in the fray. Not projecting a leader till the election is over is a policy within the Congress and it was important to follow it to keep our social coalition intact,” he added.
Yadav explained that in today’s personality-driven politics Yeddyurappa was a guarantee for the BJP. People want to connect to a face so in a sense it was a disadvantage for the Congress.
Yadav also pointed out that Chavan’s claims of social coalition were unfounded.
He explained, “In this elections the Congress’s social coalition was significantly broken. Muslims in southern Karnataka went in a big way to JDS. Dalits mainly went the BSP way and the OBCs were shared by both JDS and BJP. The adivasis, too, were as much the category of the BJP as the Congress.”
The initial dissection of the electoral results revealed that the high-command culture is letting the Congress down in state elections. So does the Congress need to do more at the micro-level?
Chavan said, “Mr Krishna wanted to come back to active politics. It was his request. And the Congress wanted all its leaders to get into the campaign. We also wanted to utilise Krishna for the party. The understanding was that he would not contest state elections. However, if the party felt in case it wins the elections he could always become the chief ministerial candidate. So he was back with that understanding.”
But Chavan did admit that the party has to introspect on why so many senior Congress leaders lost during the Karnataka battle.
Political realignments
After what was witnessed in Karnataka, there is now talk of political realignments. Is the SP part of this and is the party a potential ally for the Congress, especially after SP General Secretary Amar Singh was part of the PM’s celebratory dinner on UPA completing its four-year term at the Centre?
Taking a light note of dinner politics, Singh said, “I have had dinners with many PMs and if that was the consideration then I should have been in many parties by now.”
However, Singh hastened to add, “The era of political civility between the Congress and SP is returning and I welcome it.”
Meanwhile, on embracing an ally like SP, Congress Spokesperson Manish Tiwari said, “The UPA will continue for another year. So as far as new allies are concerned I suppose we will cross the bridge when we come to it.”
Speaking on Gowda’s future and a possible inclusion in the UNPA, Singh said, “Any decision on Gowda’s future cannot be taken in isolation. As far as Gowda is concerned he is responsible for his own doom. His inconsistency brought him down and he if continues to be like this then every political party will be cautious of him.”
So will be the Lok Sabha elections be decided by who has the best allies?
Sushma replied in the affirmative saying that the effectiveness of alliance does matter while running a coalition government.
Chavan too agreed and added, “The next election will be decided on the basis of good governance and that is why we are sure that UPA government will come to power.”
Effect on national politics
General Elections are just a year away and Karnataka could set the tone but what does it mean for the Manmohan Singh Government? The nuclear issue, fuel price hike — where the does the Government really now stand?
Many are worried that the Left is now going to tell the Government to not hike fuel prices.
Gurudas Dasgupta said, “BJP has won the elections in Karnataka and thanks should be given to Manmohan Singh and his Government. They have handed it to BJP on a platter. It is a negative vote. It is a vote against economic policy, vote against price rise, vote against suicide of the peasants, vote against the failure of the Government to tackle unemployment and various other human issues of the country.”
No nuclear deal with the US and probably no fuel price hike — is the restricted UPA a lame-duck Government then?
Not agreeing with Dasgupta, Chavan explained that UPA Government has tried to implement all the pro-poor policies, which were agreed to in the Common Minimum Programme of which Left parties were a part of. He also highlighted that the Government had succeeded in controlling the inflation as compared to other similarly placed countries. “This year we have had record wheat production and procurement,” he added.
But time seems to be running out for the UPA Government.
“Production and procurement of wheat has increased but have prices have not gone down,” Dasgupta said slamming Chavan’s claims. “There is no difference at all between BJP and Congress on economic issues.”
However, how much of the Central Government is playing at the state level? Price rise, for instance, was not seen as a critical issue in Karnataka election.
Political analyst Yogendra Yadav said there are two things that need to be looked at —effect of the policies of the Central Government and the responsibility of the Congress high command. “While of the former, I do not see any evidence as yet, second of course is directly to be blamed. Congress high command’s distance from its party leaders leave alone party workers is phenomenal. They don’t know what is happening in their party,” he explained.
Though many would be tempted to look at the Karnataka Assembly elections as just a local election, it is not. It has its reflection largely on a national scale and the BJP knows how to take advantage of it. Having lost so many elections, one after the other, the Congress will now need a lot to bounce back. At the same time, the BJP shouldn't be complacent – they have the dangers of peaking too early during election season.
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