Karnataka BJP carves new history in electoral politics

image source : indiatoday.in

The spectacular success of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the May 2019 Parliamentary elections in Karnataka is a new history in the electoral politics of the state. According to the reports till late afternoon the saffron party has registered a win or is on the way to victory in 24 constituencies leaving two to the Congress, one to the JDS and another one to an Independent supported by it.

The poll results have baffled not just the pre poll and exit poll strategists but all political onlookers including the party men and leaders themselves! Almost all exit polls predicted a rise in the tally of the saffron party while they differed in the score of the alliance partners and appeared more confusing with regard to Mandya. But contrary to all such speculations the people of the state have resolved to vote en masse. for the Bharatiya Janata Party if you were to take into cognisance the huge number of seats the party has won.

Never ever before the BJP had amassed so many seats to the Parliament in a single go and by any measure the present tally of the party is the highest so far much to the embarrassment of the JDS-INC, ruling partners of the alliance government in the state.Since early eighties Mumbai and Hyderabad regions of North Karnataka have remained strong bastions of the Janata Party/Dal and early nineties transformed themselves into the vote bank of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

On the other hand the urban, semi urban areas and the whole of coastal belt over a period of time had almost become a vote bank of the saffron party. But with the results declared so far today have proved that the whole state barring four seats to have become a fortress of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

All through the campaigning the state BJP leaders kept on reiterating that the party will win at least in 22 seats. No doubt that was for public consumption but in the innermost corner of their mind they wished like being content even if they could register a victory in 18 constituencies.But the people of the state look to have proved all those guessing on state politics wrong. Initially it was presumed that the Janata Dal Secular party represented by the grandfather and two grandchildren were bound to lose in all the three constituencies, namely Mandya, Tumakuru and Hassan.But as days passed off there were other feelers like Hassan will be retained by the family while both, grandfather and grandson are bound to lose in Tumakuru and Mandya. But once the polls got over and all these constituencies registered a huge turn out the calculations went wary.

Then there were talks in the local political circles that both Tumakuru and Mandya will witness close finish results. But interestingly even such assumptions have gone wrong and all those who had made tall claims and in both these constituencies the BJP and BJP supported candidates have trounced their candidates by a huge margin.The outcome of these polls have also exposed the tall claims of the alliance partners now at the helm of affairs in the state. When a similar situation arose in the early eighties the then chief minister Ram Krishna Hegde had tendered resignation of his government on moral grounds and had gone for mid term polls.But enough water has flown into river Cauvery since then and no one in power these days talks about morality in politics.

-Manohar Yadavatti