BJP split over Karnataka chief’s anti-Tipu pitch, wants poll campaign focus on Modi

“Karnataka is a sensitive state,” said a party leader. “I do not think one single issue can have a pan-Karnataka impact. Tipu narrative could have a feeble influence in some pockets of coastal Karnataka and some in the Old Mysuru region … But that does not fall in for what the BJP has been trying to focus — the popularity and the programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

He added, “The voters in Karnataka could be swayed towards the BJP for Modi ji because they genuinely feel that he is someone taking the country forward.”

But a BJP MP from Karnataka pointed out that the “Kateel strategy” could be beneficial to the party to gain support in several constituencies. “Certainly, it cannot be our main campaign. But pitching Tipu against the Kannadiga heroes is a smart formula,” he said.

Kateel, who has a penchant for making controversial statements, has invoked Tipu Sultan multiple times recently, projecting the coming state elections as a fight between the ideologies of Hindutva idols and the one-time ruler of Mysore. On Wednesday, speaking at a rally at Yelburga in Koppal district, Kateel asked people to chase away Tipu Sultan supporters “to the forest” as “only those who perform bhajans of Ram” should remain “in this land”.

Kateel’s call came on a day when the national leadership, including general secretary in charge of the state Arun Singh and general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh, held a marathon meeting with party MLAs, constituency representatives as well as morcha office-bearers. The meeting was also attended by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and his predecessor B S Yediyurappa. The meeting was held to discuss the preparations as well as the strategies for the election, sources said. Later this month, Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Mansukh Madaviya, and Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai would visit the state. While Pradhan is in charge of the campaign, Mandaviya and Annamalai are the election co-in-charges.

Among the state leaders and the cadre, there is a growing difference over the “hardline” approach the state president has been toying with so far, sources added. “It is a fact that such hardline could be detrimental to the party’s prospects,” said a senior leader. “While an anti-Tipu remark could get some traction in some pockets in Old Mysuru – there are villages that struggled under the atrocities unleashed by Tipu Sultan – and coastal Karnataka, where the Hindu-Muslim divide has its impact on elections too, and the Coorg area, other regions do not get influenced by it,” he said. There are five major regions in the state – Old Mysuru, which includes Bengaluru, coastal Karnataka, central Karnataka, Hyderabad (Kalyan) Karnataka and Mumbai (Kitur) Karnataka.

“But a large section of the BJP leaders want to focus on Prime Minister Modi’s popularity and the programmes of the BJP governments in the election campaign. They want the Budget proposals, keeping in view the farmers and women also, to be projected as BJP’s report card and it would have an impact on the voters,” said a party legislator.

“Even the Rath Yatra campaign — even though it sounds like a push on identity politics — is going to focus on the programmes and policies of the BJP government. ‘Neta, Neeti, Niyat’ will be its focus,” said the leader. The party also hopes that PM Modi’s inauguration of two mega projects in the coming days — he will inaugurate Shivamogga airport, the second largest in Karnataka after Bengaluru, on February 27 and the 10-lane Mysuru-Bengaluru Expressway in March — will give thrust to the party’s “development agenda”.

BJP leaders claimed that even Union Home Minister Amit Shah was “strategical” in using the name of Tipu Sultan in his political speeches. “When he used Tipu’s name, he used it against the Congress and the JD(S),” said a source in the party. At a function in Puttur earlier this month, Shah said that while the Congress and the JD(S) “believe in 18th-century Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan” and cannot do any good for the state, the BJP takes its inspiration from “16th-century Tuluva queen of Ullal Rani Abbakka Chowta” to give the state a prosperous rule. Rani Abbakka had fought against the Portuguese.

Shah’s attack on the JD(S) in Old Mysuru was to distance the BJP from the Opposition party and, in turn, help its erstwhile ally keep its Muslim votes intact. This way the BJP can prevent the consolidation of minority support behind the Congress. A consolidation of minority votes for the grand old party would make the BJP’s task in Karnataka tough, said party sources. The strategy, according to sources, also hints that the BJP is keen on the JD(S) bagging as many as seats so that it can be a prospective post-poll ally in case of a hung Assembly.