Karnataka: Do or die for Cong, BJP eyes record

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 29

While the BJP eyes a record in the only southern state where it rules, the Congress will fight the May 10 Karnataka elections for survival, having lost 13 state elections since 2021 and won just one — Himachal Pradesh last year. The BJP, which has set a target of 150 seats, is hoping to buck the 38-year-old trend.

The last time a sitting government was re-elected in Karnataka was in 1985 (Ramakrishna Hegde-led Janata Party returned to power).

Will state revive Congress?

• The Congress has lost 13 elections since 2021
• Assam, Kerala, Puducherry & West Bengal (2021)
• UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa & Gujarat (2022)
• Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya (2023)

The elections will be key to Congress’ resurrection. Karnataka is the first state to go to the polls after Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as MP over defamatory remarks on the Modis made in this very state in Kolar in 2019, his London remarks on India’s alleged democratic decline and his unrelenting attack on industrialist Gautam Adani.

It remains to be seen if PM Narendra Modi’s pitch against “family-based parties” and “the corrupt have come together” will hold good in Karnataka, where the BJP faces anti-incumbency. Poll results will set the tone for Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and MP elections, where the Congress and BJP are pitted against each other, and test the BJP’s “anti-OBC” spin, well-crafted with Karnataka’s OBCs (35% of population) in mind. The narrative also seeks to dent Congress’ AHINDA base (Dalits, Backward Classes, Kurubas and Muslims) while the BJP expands LIBRA (Lingayat, Brahmin) segments and adds more with its reservation for the Lingayats and Vokkaligas after scrapping a 4 per cent Muslim quota within the OBC quota list.