The Congress has cruised to a comfortable majority of its own in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, obliterating the Bharatiya Janata Party south of the Vindhyas. Now, the state joins its peers, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, in ensuring the defeat of the BJP.
It is indeed good news for the Gandhi Parivar, especially Rahul, who walked the talk through the state not long ago as a part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra. In fact, Rahul’s people connect has prompted leaders like Abhishek Banerjee of the Trinamool to replicate the yatra prior to the forthcoming panchayat elections. Together with Rahul, Priyanka and Mallikrjun Kharge also seem to have regained some political relevance now. The Congress party would now throw their entire focus on Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to repeat their performance and ensure them a pole position for the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This may not be all happy news for two other prime ministerial aspirants: Nitish Kumar, the CM of Bihar, and Mamata Banerjee, the CM of West Bengal. Mamata has isolated herself in the hope of becoming the messiah of the opposition for 2024, which seems to be distancing herself farther from her. The Congress, any day, has deeper pockets and a greater pan-India presence than the one-state regional parties like the Trinamool and the JD (United). The Congress win may also not be great news for the Lalu clan and Tejaswi Yadav, the deputy CM, who, in order to become the CM of Bihar, has been scheming to get rid of Nitish to Delhi to become PM in 2024.
I expect no leadership battle in the Karnataka Congress, which could well go to Siddaramaiah. The down-the-line defections for not being rewarded with ministerial portfolios are unlikely with the Congress getting a reasonable majority. On the contrary, the simple majority of the Congress is a disaster for Kumaraswamy, the former CM of Karnataka and the torchbearer of the Vokkaliga caste. His time will now be spent protecting and safeguarding his party from the defections of greedy winners who might rush to join Congress.
What should Modi-Shah be doing? The aggression in their campaign must end. The authoritarian tone must cease, as should the polarization of communities, which they have sustained for more than eight years. If the ending of 5% job reservation for Muslims caused the fatal electoral defeat for the BJP, humiliating an old guard like Jagish Shettar also had its impact on the Lingayats. That Shettar lost was entirely the mature pattern of the discerning voters, who punished a turncoat. The high inflation caused a severe hole in the pockets of ordinary workers and caused heartburn.
Next, the Congress party has promised freebies and a reversal of the annulled Muslim job reservation quota, which may be challenged in court. However, it is unlikely to cause any major change in the five-year tenure of Congress governance in Karnataka. Rahul’s image makers have struck a chord with ordinary voters as one who is simple, even if inexperienced, empathetic of the common man’s problems and concerns, and has scored a notch higher than the mighty superhuman image of Modi and Shah.
Amit Malviya, the acerbic IT cell chief, and his ilk must redraw their strategy of showcasing their party as people-friendly rather than aggressively and viciously attacking all other political opponents and their parties.
Jai Hind.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
