Karnataka: Lessons For The BJP
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2023-05-15 06:24:05
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The India Commentary view
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Although it is too early to see the BJP rout in Karnataka as the beginning of the end for the party, as TMC supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has said, it is surely going to send the party scurrying to the drawing board to analyze how it lost an election in which it invested a lot. The simple reason is that the issues at hand in state elections and Lok Sabha elections are completely different. Yes the Congress won comprehensively and the BJP lost the only state it held in south India and some issues that were raised in Karnataka will find resonance in the 2024 elections too, but to see the Karnataka elections as the trailer for 2024 will be premature and hence wrong.
But the Karnataka elections hold sobering lessons for the BJP. Campaign blitzkrieg by Prime Minister Modi is not enough when the state government is facing the kind of anti-incumbency the non-performing and seemingly corrupt Basavaraj Bommai administration was facing. Changing the chief minister mid-way does not always work. Instead, in this case, removing the Lingayat stalwart B S Yediyurappa angered the community and the BJP ended up losing their support. Replacing old MLAs with new faces to fight off anti-incumbency also does not always work. In Karnataka, it worked otherwise with the dropped MLAs creating problems and the new faces not finding favour with the people. Increasing quotas, as the BJP did for the SC/ST, also does not work as it was seen for what it was - an election sop. But perhaps the biggest lesson was that disruptive and divisive politics will not work in states that are focused on economic growth.
The elections also showed that Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra is likely to result in electoral benefits for the party, at least in some states. Gandhi had spent the maximum time in the state during the yatra and the party won 37 of the 51 seats in constituencies through which the yatra passed. The Congress now needs to set its house in order and settle the leadership issue in the state. It had promised a lot of welfare schemes in the campaign and it must now focus of delivering the same. It must also build on the Karnataka victory, galvanize the workers and fight the upcoming state elections this year with renewed confidence.
