The possibility of a mid-term parliamentary election is looming large and the Congress is appearing to have lost some of its urban votebank in Karnataka. In the recently concluded urban local bodies poll, the JD(S) and the BJP have walked home with huge gains, while the Congress has been limited to the Mysore region.The party has even suffered a setback in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region — Congress leaders like Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Dharam Singh and KPCC President Mallikarjun Kharge come from this region. The party, which had 2,322 seats in the 2001 polls, won only 1,284 seats this time.Meanwhile, the ruling coalition partners, the JD(S) and the BJP, though sparring over power transfer, have bettered their performance. The two coalition partners together won nearly 50 per cent of the seats — together they have 2,256 seats against the total of 4,084 seats in 209 urban local bodies. Others have 544 seats. Most surprising is JD(U)’s performance, which stands at 24 seats, including five in the Hubli-Dharwad Corporation. In the 2001 elections, the JD(S)-JD(U) combine had 872 seats. The JD(S) had 415 seats, while the JD(U) had 457 seats. The BJP then had 562 seats. This election, the number of seats won by the JD(S) and the BJP separately are 1,314 and 942 respectively.This indicates that both parties, not only as coalition partners but also on their own have almost doubled their strength in the urban electoral landscape. Both the parties have won seats in areas where they didn’t win any seats in 2001.Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had recently blamed the BJP for casting a shadow over the secular credentials of the JD(S). However, if this election is any indicator, the tie-up has not affected the parties’ votebank.Kumaraswamy, meanwhile, attributed the JD(S) success to the support expressed by the women and the minority voters in the state. An analysis of the results show that the JD(S) has made inroads in Bangalore, Old Mysore province, Hyderabad-Karnataka and the plains, while the BJP has done better in Malnad, coastal and Mumbai-Karnataka regions.
