A united front, early kick-off, going hyper-local, placating rebels, wooing leaders: Cong’s successful game plan

The party will hope to also have put behind the criticism often thrown at it for not fighting long or hard enough, having crafted its Karnataka campaign carefully and strategically.

With the strategy finding success, sources in the high command said the Karnataka template will now be replicated in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

The things that paid off for the Congress:

🔴 Unity message

In August last year, when Rahul Gandhi nudged D K Shivakumar to hug Siddaramiah on the dais at the former chief minister’s 75th birthday bash, it evoked much laughter in the Congress circles and drew ridicule from the BJP. The two stalwarts of the Karnataka Congress have been long known to be at loggerheads.

In fact, Shivakumar was not happy when the announcement came that Siddaramaiah’s birthday was to be celebrated in a grand manner. He went on record to say that the Congress does not believe in worshiping individuals, but the high command intervened and turned the event into a unity show.

But it was just the beginning. The Congress often asks its warring leaders in states to put up a united face in elections, but it was the first time it micromanaged and coordinated their joint appearances like it did in Karnataka.

Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah’s joint appearance with Rahul during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in October was the second such event. The high command also insisted that the two lead a yatra – Prajadhwani Yatre – together, at least in the first phase, and not separately as they had proposed.

So they embarked on the yatra together, visited all the district headquarters and then led separate yatras covering almost all constituencies. “There was a huge gap between the two… it was hampering our efforts. They were told that they have to be seen together regularly,” one senior leader said.

Then came the much-talked-about video interaction between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, itself an improvisation. In the middle of the campaign, the Congress asked both to speak “good” about each other. “DK (Shivakumar) turned it into a video. The high command agreed. DK’s only condition was that the video should be shot by an agency, Designboxed, that he had hired to manage his publicity,” one leader said.

With the CM’s post in case of a Congress win a major bone of contention between the two, a message also went out that they should not be talking about the same.

Finally, just a day before polling, came the final joint appearance at the high command’s insistence: at Chamundeshwari temple.

🔴 Guarantees, outreach to women and youth

Women and youth have been a big vote bank for the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Congress made a concerted push to make a dent here. Former AICC communication head Randeep Surjewala being general secretary in-charge of the state came in handy.

There was a realisation that announcements made in manifestos nearer to voting day never really percolated down to voters. Accordingly, the party decided to make public its key promises much in advance, and in a staggered manner, to sustain expectation and interest. It was also decided that key figures would make the announcements.

These “guarantees” were linked to issues like price rise and unemployment. Ideas like putting up gas cylinders in Congress election booths near polling stations and Shivakumar offering prayers to a cylinder were all part of this plan.

Accordingly, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra announced the ‘Gruha Lakshmi’ scheme, promising Rs 2,000 a month to women-led households, in January at a convention of women. Days later, as Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar embarked on a bus yatra, the party unveiled its second promise, of 200 units of free electricity. With the first two promises announced, the party began printing “guarantee cards” in the form of a cheque and started a door-to-door campaign to ensure that these reached maximum houses.

In February, a month later, Shivakumar announced the third guarantee – 10 kg of free rice per month to each BPL family member under the ‘Anna Bhagya’ scheme. Addressing a public meeting in Belagavi in March, Rahul announced the fourth promise – Rs 3,000 every month to unemployed youth with graduation degrees for two years called ‘Yuva Nidhi’.

The fifth promise – free bus service for women – was announced by Rahul in the middle of the campaign. The initial task of former IAS officer-turned-politician Sasikanth Senthil, who headed the war room in Bengaluru, was to ensure that the guarantee cards reached each and every household.

🔴 Corruption as central plank, hyper-local campaign

Like with identifying guarantees, zeroing in on issues too began nearly a year in advance. For example, corruption, which was seen as a major taint against the Basavaraj Bommai government. The idea was to set a narrative before the BJP government seized the same and ensure that the campaign was centered around that till the last.

In September last year, posters with QR codes and pictures of the Karnataka Chief Minister stating “PayCM” sprung up across Bengaluru. The campaign stuck, enough to rile the CM. The charge of “40 percent commission sarkara” was made ad nauseam by Congress leaders – right from Rahul to Priyanka and party president Mallikarjun Kharge to state leaders.

In his initial speeches, Rahul repeatedly attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Adani issue and raised the issue of caste census. The internal assessment was that the Adani issue had little traction while the caste census had receptiveness. But the state leadership was keen to keep the campaign hyper-local and maintain the focus away from Modi. So, Rahul soon made amends and switched to local issues in his later speeches.

Priyanka too played according to the script and repeatedly said that the election was about Karnataka and not Modi. The script derailed a bit when Kharge called the PM a venomous snake. He immediately expressed regret. “It was perhaps the only big faux pas that we committed. Otherwise, we never wavered from our narrative,” a senior leader said.

While the BJP and Modi seized on the issue, with the PM going on to claim that he had been targeted “91 times” by the Congress — as per a list compiled by his party – the Congress avoided entering into a war of words with him.

When Modi launched an attack around the use of the word “sovereignty” in the context of Karnataka by the Congress, the party chose to delete the tweet – which was the basis for the BJP attack — though after polling was over.

🔴 Strategic silence on JD(S)

Unlike the 2018 elections when Rahul himself called the JD(S) the B-Team of the BJP, the Congress this time maintained a tactical silence on the JD(S).

The Congress consciously made the election a Congress-BJP fight. “The JD(S) vote bank primarily consists of Vokkaligas, Dalits and Muslims. An attack on the JD(S) and the Gowdas would have backfired. So we attacked the JD(S) at street-corner meetings and all, but asked our top leaders, including the Gandhis, to stay away from talking about the JD(S),” a leader said.

In around 90-odd seats in Mysore and Bengaluru, the Congress was in direct fight with the JD(S), but the party deftly gave the impression that the election was all about ousting the BJP government. Moreover, it also gave tickets to some former JD(S) veterans.

In another tactic, the Congress ensured it didn’t raise the pitch against the AIMIM or its leader Asaduddin Owaisi. The Congress has in the past often called him a “vote-cutter”, working at the behest of the BJP. The idea was to send a clear signal to the Muslim community that the choice was between the Congress and the BJP, without railing the Hindu voters.

🔴 Bajrang Dal misfire

Top leaders of the Congress admitted in private that the mention of Bajrang Dal in its manifesto, equating it with the banned Popular Front of India, was “avoidable”. But the party decided not to back down, and barring one dissonant voice by M Veerappa Moily, it defended its position throughout. While many leaders said the decision to name the Bajrang Dal was not a planned move, the party soon realised that it had resulted in counter-polarisation among the Muslims, especially in seats where the JD(S) held sway.

“The BJP was targeting us on the PFI issue. Home Minister Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had been attacking us saying the Siddaramaiah government was soft on the PFI and would give such radical forces a free hand if voted to power. So we had to address the PFI issue in some way. Naming the Bajrang Dal along with the PFI was a balancing act. The idea was to tell the people that law will be supreme,” one leader said.

Once the manifesto came out, and Modi called it an attack on Hanuman devotees, the party was initially rattled. But it held a survey to gauge the mood of the people and found out that the issue had no resonance outside the coastal region. And even in the coastal belt, the party’s assessment was that the damage would be confined to a handful of seats.

On the other hand, the party found, the Muslim community and a large section of the urban voters took the manifesto promise positively, as they saw the outfit as a nuisance.

“Apart from hardcore BJP voters, a large section of the floating urban voters who like Modi and may still vote for him in the 2024 elections… were not really happy with the violent ways of outfits like the Bajrang Dal and Sri Ram Sene. And Karnataka has a large urban population. So in a way we believe the Bajrang Dal controversy swung in our favour. The Hindutva sentiment was not that perceptible this time,” a senior leader said.

🔴 Candidate selection

For the first time in recent history, the Congress announced its candidates in more than half of the seats even before the election schedule was announced. Several committees – including the A K Antony panel – set up by the party after election defeats in the past had suggested the need for announcing candidates early. But it was never done in the past, primarily because announcing nominees early meant giving those who could not make it as candidates ample time to prepare to make life difficult for the party.

As the party took the plunge, to counter a rebel pushback, K C Venugopal, the AICC general secretary in charge of organisation who was earlier in-charge of Karnataka, and Surjewala camped in the state. The two along with Siddaramaiah and DK spoke to the leaders who were unhappy and persuaded them against contesting.

Sources said that even then there were at least three dozen rebels in the initial stages. So Venugopal and Surjewala camped in various district headquarters and reached out to all of them individually, including former MLA Vasu in Mysore. The serious rebels were given the assurance that they would be accommodated once the government was formed. Most of the rebels who had filed nomination papers agreed to withdraw. The list of serious rebels was whittled down to 7-8 by the end.

“We have a handful of rebels. A couple of them will damage us. But the rebel trouble is manageable this time,” one senior leader told The Indian Express earlier.

Parallely, a social media campaign was planned to send a message about the BJP’s own divided house. Defections of prominent faces from the BJP sealed that image.

🔴 Tactical inductions

Sources said DK played a major role in getting several BJP and JD(S) leaders to cross over, including Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi. One leader said the party had a list of 50-odd leaders in other parties who were vulnerable. “In every election, the Congress suffers an exit of leaders, helping the BJP send a message that the party is crumbling. This time, we played that game,” a leader said, while admitting that the party might not be able to replicate this in every state. “Here, we could do this as our local leadership was strong.”

In the case of Shettar, veterans M B Patil and Shamanur Shivashankarappa played a role. One of Shivashankarappa’s granddaughters is married to Shettar’s son. And another of his granddaughters is set to marry Patil’s eldest son.

Party sources said several more BJP leaders too wanted to switch sides, but the Congress could not accommodate them because it was unable to give them the seats they were asking for. Among them were said to be V Somanna himself, who eventually lost from both the seats he was fielded by the BJP.

In other tactical decisions, sources said, DK was dissuaded from seeking to contest against CM Bommai. The party finally decided against fielding a big name against him, to avoid making the fight personal. “Fielding a big name would have meant more attention on Bommai. Such tactics rarely help,” one leader said. “We also did not want Shivakumar to be tied to his seat. He was virtually our star campaigner.”

The other decision was not to let either Siddaramaiah or DK contest from two seats. “One, it would have sent the message that they were looking for safe seats. We also wanted them to spend less time in their seats. Siddaramaiah must have spent hardly two or three days in Varuna,” one leader said.

🔴 Micro-management

The party divided the state into five zones, putting each region under a working president – Ramalinga Reddy, Eshwar Khandre, Saleem Ahmed, Satish Jarkiholi, and R Dhruvanarayana – and an AICC secretary. “This helped the organisation remain on the toes in these five regions. Then there were observers for every parliamentary seat,” a leader said.

Relying heavily on micro-management, the party’s central leadership had also identified some 70-odd “touch and go” constituencies. “We had done five surveys in the last eight months. The candidates — barring a few seats at the end – were primarily picked on the basis of these surveys carried out by Sunil Kanugolu’s team. On the basis of those surveys, we identified 70-odd hot seats. Accordingly we deputed AICC observers – drawn from across the country – to each of these constituencies,” one leader said.

These observers included former Madhya Pradesh home minister Bala Bachchan, Chhattisgarh minister Kawasi Lakhma, Rajya Sabha MP Ranjeet Ranjan, former Gujarat Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani, former Maharashtra ministers Vijay Waddettiwar, Amit Deskhmukh and Satej Patil, former UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and Uttarakhand deputy CLP leader Bhuwan Kapri.

“Unlike in the past, where Rahul or Priyanka or other senior leaders went to constituencies where there was maximum demand, this time we largely sent them to those touch-and-go seats,” one leader said. So, even while the campaign was micromanaged by the central leadership, there was a clear attempt to put the local leadership in the front.

🔴 The caste card

An array of leaders with strong caste and community backing in its ranks, the Congress played this card deftly to beat back the BJP’s attempts at Hindutva consolidation. Rahul began his campaign by talking about caste census and the party’s manifesto followed up with a promise on the same, as well as to increase the ceiling on reservation from 50% to 75%, to “accommodate the hopes and aspirations of SC/ST/OBC/minority and other communities like Lingayats and Vokkaligas”.

Earlier, Rahul had promised more reservation for OBC community and breaching the 50% quota cap.

Then came the tactical move. The party inducted Lingayat heavyweights Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi. More than Lingayats, both of them belong to two sub-sects which have in the past backed the BJP. While Shettar belongs to the Banajiga community, Savadi is a Ganiga Lingayat. The Congress already had M B Patil, the chairman of the campaign committee, as a prominent Lingayat face.

Meanwhile, the tactical silence on the JD(S) ensured that the party did not upset the Vokkaliga community – which forms the JD(S)’s core vote base – and allowed D K Shivakumar to cash in on his popularity among his community.

Congress leaders say Mallikarjun Kharge’s elevated role as Congress president added to Siddaramaiah’s popularity among the backward classes. Over the years, he has assiduously made inroads into minorities, backward classes and the Dalits – popularly known his AHINDA in Kannada.

As of Saturday evening, of the 51 Lingayat candidates the Congress fielded, 37 won. Besides, 23 of its Vokkaliga candidates were victorious, with the party decimating the JD(S) in its strongholds of Tumkur and Mandya districts. The Congress went up in Mandya from 0 of 7 in 2018, to 5; and in Tmukur from 2 of 11 to 7.