By Tarique Anwar and Md Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: In the recent assembly election in Karnataka, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got a thumping victory with 110 seats, a little short of a majority in the 224-member assembly. The victory is historic as it is the first time that BJP is able to form a government on its own in Southern India. On the other hand, the Congress, which has ruled the state for decades, was restricted to 80 seats. What led to BJP’s victory? Did it play a communal card as it does in the North or should Congress be blamed for it?
Hrishikesh Bahadur Desai
To assess the election results TwoCircles.net spoke to Hrishikesh Bahadur Desai, Bangalore-based senior political correspondent of Times of India. Desai says the victory of BJP in the election was largely the result of public resentment against Janata Dal (S).
There was JD (S)-BJP combine government in the state. According to their agreement, JD(S) was to hand over the power to BJP after completing first half of the term, i.e. two and half years, but JD(S) refused to do so which caused hatred and anger towards the party. B S Yeddyurappa, newly elected Chief Minister, belongs to upper caste of Lingayeth. He gathered all upper caste votes in his party’s favor.
As for communal issues in the campaign, BJP put its focus on mobilizing sympathy votes and highlighting price rise. But when other parties including Congress raised some communal issues, BJP responded in the same coin, said Desai.
The Congress, on the other hand, could not put its full force in the election. Party’s central leadership including president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi made only three trips to the state during the entire campaign. This shows they fought the election half-heartedly. When asked about prominent reasons for Congress’ defeat, Desai says lack of organization and discipline and poorly managed election campaign played crucial role in its defeat. Congress’ most popular face in the state and former chief minister SM Krishna was deployed in the campaign too late. Congress did not pay its attention on the state assembly election as much as it does in UP and Bihar and it had to pay for it.
Asked about the minority representation in the state assembly, Desai said Muslims constitute 12% of the total population of the state but their representation in the assembly always remained very low. Just 4-5 candidates from the community have been able to sit in the assembly of 224 members. Compared to Deve Gowda’s caste which is 1% less than Muslims in population, Muslims have fared very poorly in the elections all through the history. People from Deve Gowda’s cast occupies about half of the assembly seats.
In this election, Desai says, Muslim vote was divided among Congress, JD(S), BSP and a local Janata Parivar Party. Desai is critical of state Muslim leadership. He says Muslim leadership, like Dalit leadership, is selfish. They are little interested in their community’s development.
Literacy rate of Muslim community is very low and their female literacy rate is lower. They are very backward in economy. Taking advantage of these shortcomings of the community most of the parties raised emotional issues and they answered in the same way. Very few parties raised the issue of development of minorities in the state election campaign, points out Desai. BJP highlighted that it raised government allocation of fund for minority welfare nearly 10 times in comparison to the allocation during SM Krishna’s and BJP-JD(S) coalition government. But this was not fully true, says Desai, as the party when part of the coalition government in the state pulled funds from other departments and put it in a single department to make the statistics impressive.
Will this BJP government play communal politics? Though it has begun showing some signs but it will have to remain moderate as people in this part of India are moderate, says Desai. However, BJP has nominated for Assembly Speaker’s post a person who earned fame by staging demonstration at Idgah Maidan in Hubli under the banner of BJP. That person has been an ABVP leader, says Desai.
Listen to the interview: