The people in Karnataka have voted. And they have shown just
how disgruntled they were with the BJP. The ruling party lost as was expected.
Nothing surprising about that. What is however surprising is the scale of the
defeat. The party has lost nearly 65% of its seats. In all likelihood, it has
been relegated to the number 3 position, behind even the JD(S). Even if it does
manage to go past the JD(S) as the last votes are counted, it will just barely
do so. It has lost in all the regions of the state. This kind of a whitewash is
rare; and it indicates just how fed up the people were with the party.
The Congress was always expected to win. Even the post-poll
forecasts indicated that (though I am not a big believer in such dip-stick
forecasts). But in spite of all this, I am sure the Congress must have been a
little worried about what would happen. The overhang of the crisis in Delhi,
the charges of corruption – all must have made the party nervous. In fact,
throughout the entire vote counting process – which started at 8 am today – the
party’s prospects looked far worse than what the eventual outcome was. Clearly,
the party must now be relieved!
What is interesting is the way Bangalore city behaved.
Through the counting process, the Congress was shown to be losing a couple of
seats over its previous tally. If that had happened, it would have given the
BJP some talking points – that all the scams in Delhi had effect on voting in the
urban areas. Unfortunately for the BJP, that didn’t happen. The Congress picked
up 3 additional seats in the city, while the BJP lost half its seats (8). So
clearly, the disgruntlement with the BJP’s local corruption was far higher than
that of the Congress in faraway Delhi!
The fact that the results have come exactly as predicted
also shows how savvy Narendra Modi is. He refused to canvass in the state. I
wrote on this matter earlier (April 26th
- Why is Modi keeping away from
Karnataka????). The same
came up for discussion today on TV, and the BJP’s discomfort on the subject was
apparent. Apparently Modi was “pre-occupied” with other things! We know that if
Modi is pre-occupied with anything, it is with his PM ambitions! How could he
not have found time for the BJP’s only Southern bastion? The truth is what I
have maintained, and that is what the Congress spokesperson brought out – that
Modi doesn’t have the courage to take on the tough challenges. He knew
Karnataka was going to be tough, and he chose to stay away. I cannot imagine
how the captain of the ship can stay away from an impending disaster? How can
he just walk away???? Contrast this with Rahul Gandhi, who took on campaigning
responsibilities in UP and Bihar, two states in which the Congress hasn’t done
well for at least 2 decades. He lost in Bihar, and he took it on his chin. He
did very well in the UP Lok Sabha elections in 2009 (winning 22 Lok Sabha
seats, which no one expected that). And though he failed in the UP assembly elections,
he managed to improve his party’s tally. The important point is that Rahul
Gandhi did not run away from a tough challenge. In fact, he jumped right into
it. If anything, he stayed away from Karnataka – leaving the fruits of success
to his local team members!
Anyways, the good
news for the state is that a single
party has got the mandate to rule. Through the vote counting period, it looked
like the Congress would manage only 100 seats or so and if that would have
happened, it would have had to depend on the JD(S) or the independents. That
would have been really bad for the state. But now that the problem has
vanished, the ball is squarely in the Congress’s court. It has to give a good
government, dismantle the corruption set-up the BJP created, and bring glory
back to the state and its capital Bangalore, which is a short code for India’s
IT might.
The other good news
is that the people have preferred to vote for the Congress and not that much
for the JD(S). We need a bigger role for the national parties and had the JD(S)
done better than the Congress, it would have sent the wrong message. Even in
terms of vote swings, it looks like the Congress has got a higher swing in its
favor (+7%) than the JD(S) (+4%) (based on 117 seats, as per NDTV). The BJP of
course has been decimated, losing 15% of the state’s votes.
One last point. It
looks like the voters were upset with the corruption of the BJP. But it was
also upset with the upping of the Hindutva levels in the state. The memories of
the Ram Sene (an outfit sympathetic to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the
Bajrang Dal) attacking girls in pubs and demonizing Hussain’s paintings are all
too vivid. This is why Hindutva doesn’t work for long. The people of the
country don’t want anyone to play moral police. They are happy in being Hindus…..but
they are also progressive…..and they want to live in peace with others. That is
the loud message from Karnataka to the BJP.
The real truth is that even though Karnataka has voted
along predicted lines, and the BJP has got mauled, the scale of the mauling is
what is surprising. The party was expected to get 50 seats….it looks like it
will get just 39 or so. This should make the party think – clearly its attacks
on the Congress are not helping it…..
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