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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-04-17 07:42:05

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

Among all political parties in India, the BJP (other than the Left parties) is reputed to be the most disciplined party when it comes to leaders going by the party diktat. But what is happening in Karnataka after the party list of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections has been issued shows that this is no longer true. From ex-chief ministers to popular local leaders and mayors, all have openly rebelled against the party for either denying them tickets to contest or not allowing them to contest from their preferred constituency. This has put the party, already facing huge anti-incumbency in the state, in an embarrassing position, to put it mildly. The scale of the rebellion is also likely to disturb the party's carefully crafted caste equations in allotting tickets to contest.

Former chief minister Jagadish Shettar is angry that he has not been given a ticket to contest from Hubballi-Dharwad Central constituency. He has resigned as MLA and is likely to leave the party. The party has offered him sops. It has asked him to choose between a Union ministership, a RS seat or ticket for a relative. It is not known now what Shettar will do. The Bengaluru mayor, Katte Satyanarayana, has announced that he will contest as an independent candidate from the Basavanagudi constituency after he was denied a ticket. Earlier, senior leader and former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi, along with S Angara and R Shankar, had quit the party. A day later, three other MLAs had quit. The rebellion is showing no signs of slowing down and the party, already fighting factionalism at the top in the state, is in a quandary.

But with multiple candidates angling for the same ticket, the party should have anticipated this and should have taken steps to prevent this situation. But after deciding to look beyond B S Yediyurappa in these elections, the party finds that it has no assertive state leader to keep the flock together. Multiple factions have grown at all levels in the party and each one of them is trying to be assertive. It is now clear that the party high command does not have any direct control over these factions. It also does not have a local satrap of eminence to control these factions. If this state of affairs continues, the party will be hard put to retain power just by banking on Prime Minister Modi charisma. Assembly elections are fought on local issues and local leaders, with their band of faithful workers, are instrumental in convincing the voters to vote for the party. If the party finds that in most constituencies voters are confused due to defection of local leaders, its vote might be split and it might end up on the losing side despite the division of the opposition vote. Karnataka seems to be headed for a hung assembly once again and it will require the full implementation of the famed managerial skills of the party to bring its campaign back on rails.