As Karnataka heads to polls, takeaways from past: BJP’s rise, Cong’s firm hold

There have been 14 Assembly polls in Karnataka since 1956, when Kannada-speaking regions were merged to form the state as part of the reorganisation of states.

Steady rise of BJP

The political map of Karnataka has seen the steady emergence of the BJP. After its foundation in 1980, the party contested the first Assembly election in the state in 1983, winning 18 of the 110 seats it contested (out of a total of 224) and getting 7.93 per cent of the votes.

In the next Assembly election, in 1985, the party contested 116 seats but won only 2, its vote share dropping to 3.88 per cent. The Janata Party led by Ramakrishna Hegde had swept the 1985 polls, winning 139 seats with a vote share of 43.60 per cent.

In 1989 also, the BJP’s performance remained dismal (4 seats and 4.14 per cent vote share). But starting in the mid-Nineties, when the party got a boost in the wake of the Ayodhya movement, its graph has been rising.

In the 1994 Assembly elections, the BJP won 40 seats, with a vote share of 16.99 per cent. In 1999, this was up to 44 seats, and by 2004, 79 seats. In 2007, B S Yediyurappa became the first BJP Chief Minister in the state, after the Congress broke alliance with the JD(S), bringing down the H D Kumaraswamy government.

The BJP, which had 44 seats, claimed stake to form the government and Yediyurappa was sworn in as CM on November 12, 2007, but barely a week later, he had to resign as the JD(S) leadership refused to support the BJP-led government.

When fresh elections were held in 2008, the BJP improved its tally further to 110 seats. Yediyurappa again took oath as CM, and served from May 2008 to August 2011. His successor Sadananda Gowda remained in office for less than a year. Just a year ahead of the 2013 Assembly polls, the BJP replaced Gowda with Jagdish Shettar, who remained in office for less than a year.

(In fact, Yediyurappa, despite taking oath as CM four times, has never once completed a full term in office.)

In 2013, the BJP faced a debacle, with its tally plunging to 40 seats and vote share to 19.89 per cent. The Congress formed the government that year.

In 2018, by when the Modi era had begun in the BJP, the party recovered ground and emerged as the single-largest party with 104 seats. Its vote share was 36.22 per cent.

Vote share is silver lining for Cong

One thing which has been constant in all the 14 Assembly elections held in Karnataka – barring 1985 and 1994 — is the Congress as the top performer in terms of vote share, even when it lost power. It has never dropped below 26% votes in the state. Even in the last elections in 2018, the Congress’s vote share stood at 38.04 per cent, nearly 2 per cent more than the BJP, though the latter got more seats.

The first time the Congress didn’t get the most votes was in 1985, when the Janata Party won 139 seats and got a vote share of 43.60 per cent, surpassing the Congress’s 65 seats and 40.82 per cent vote share. In 1994, when the Janata Dal ascended to power, it got 115 seats and a vote share of 33.54 per cent, compared to 34 seats and 26.95 per cent votes for the Congress (its worst performance in the state). This coincided with the BJP getting traction in the state.

How Cong dominance ended

The Congress was the dominant force in the state till 1983, when Janata Party leader Ramakrishna Hegde was sworn in as the CM of the first non-Congress government in Karnataka.

There was a time when several Congress leaders were elected unopposed. For instance, in 1957, six seats — Sampgaon-II, Afzalpur, Shahpur, Chennagiri, Sringeri, and Baindur — were decided uncontested in favour of the Congress. In 1962, two Congress candidates, standing from Talikoti and Hunsur, won uncontested. Among them was D Devaraj Urs (Hunsur), who later served two terms as Karnataka CM and still holds the record for the longest time (over 7 years) in the post.

In the 1967 Assembly elections, two Congress stalwarts — M Y Ghorpade from Sandur and S Nijalingappa from Shiggaon — won uncontested. Ghorpade, a former royal, was the son of the last king of the Sandur State. Nijlingappa was the first CM of Karnataka, serving from November 1956 to May 1958. He later held the post from June 1962 to May 1968.

Nijalingappa was the Congress president when the party split in 1969, after he expelled Indira Gandhi from the party. The faction led by Nijalingappa became Indian National Congress (Organization) or Congress(O). In 1972, the Congress (O) contested 176 seats and won only 24. The Congress (I), on the other hand, received a massive mandate, winning 165 seats with a vote share of 52.17 per cent.

Janata Party, Janata Dal

The first one to dislodge the Congress from power in Karnataka was the Janata Party. Founded in 1977 as an alliance of several parties opposed to the Congress, which also came to power at the Centre that year in elections held after the Emergency, the Janata Party contested its first election in Karnataka in 1978. It fought in 222 seats and won 59, with a vote share of 37.95 per cent. Five years later, led by Hegde, the party had surged to 95 seats, helping it form the government in the state.

The Janata Party experiment did not last long – both at the Centre and in the state. In 1988, several Janata Party factions and some smaller parties formed the Janata Dal. In 1989, Janata Dal contested 209 seats and won only 24, with a vote share of 27.08 per cent. In 1994, the party wrested power from the Congress, winning 115 seats and a vote share of 33.54 per cent.

Janata Dal split

The Janata Dal, which attained its peak when its leader H D Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister at the head of the United Front government in 1996, too later split.

In 1999, then CM J H Patel extended his party’s support to the BJP led-NDA at the Centre. A faction under the leadership of Deve Gowda broke away and founded the Janata Dal (Secular).

In the 1999 Assembly elections, the JD(S) contested 203 seats and won only 10, with a vote share of 10.42 per cent.

The JD(S)’s best ever performance was in 2004, when it contested 220 seats and won 58, with a vote share of 20.77 per cent. Since then, its vote share has remained below 20 per cent and its seat count too has not crossed 40.

In 2004, after none of the parties got absolute majority, the JD(S) formed an alliance with the Congress and supported the latter to form the government. The Congress’s Dharam Singh became the CM. However, about two years later, the JD(S) walked out of the alliance, bringing down the government.

In February 2006, the JD(S) again formed the government, this time with the BJP’s support. Deve Gowda’s son H D Kumaraswamy became the CM. However, his tenure also proved short-lived, with his government falling in October 2007.

Kumaraswamy got another shot as CM in 2018, after his party entered into a post-poll alliance with the Congress, with no party getting a majority in that election. However, this time too, he got barely a year in the post, with the BJP weaning away MLAs and felling the JD(S)-Congress government in July 2019.

Left’s failure

Both the CPI and CPI(M) have failed to make any inroads in the state’s politics. The CPI has contested all the 14 Assembly elections in the state since 1957 and the CPI(M) since 1967 onwards. However, the combined tally of the two parties has never crossed double digits, with the vote share too insignificant. On several occasions, the two parties could not even open their account.

Independents

While they used to be the second largest group in the state Assembly till 1967 (winning 41 seats that year, with 28.36 per cent votes), since then there has been a decline in their influence. For instance, in the last Assembly elections in 2018, only one Independent won, with all of them together securing just 3.93 per cent votes.

Performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls

An analysis of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections shows that the BJP (which won 25 Lok Sabha seats) stood first across 170 Assembly segments. The Congress won 1 Lok Sabha seat and stood first in 36 Assembly segments. The JD(S) and Independents were ahead in 10 and 8 Assembly segments, respectively.

The BJP’s vote share saw a rise from 36.22 per cent in the 2018 Assembly elections to as much as 51.72 per cent in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019.

However, while this might be seen as an indication that the BJP has consolidated its lead of 2018 against the Congress and JD(S), previous Lok Sabha poll results show that the pattern of voting in general and Assembly elections is not the same.

For instance, in the 2013 Assembly elections, the Congress had won 122 seats, while the BJP and JD(S) had both got 40 seats each. However, a year later, when the Lok Sabha polls were held, the BJP won 17 seats and stood first across 132 Assembly segments. Its vote share rose from 20 per cent in 2013 to 43.37 per cent in 2014.

On the other hand, the Congress won just 9 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in 2014, when Narendra Modi first came to power at the Centre, and stood first in 77 Assembly segments. Its vote share, though, rose, from 37 per cent in 2013 to 41.15 per cent in 2014.

Direct competitors

In the 2018 Assembly elections, the BJP won 85 of its 104 seats against the Congress, while 1 of its victories came against the JD(S) and in 2, it defeated Independents. The Congress too won most of its seats (58 of 79) against the BJP – indicating that the two traditional rivals remain the main competitors in the state.

Of the 37 seats the JD(S) won, 25 were against the Congress and 9 against the BJP.

Performance of Parties in direct contest in the 2018 Karnataka Assembly Elections