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Journalism of Courage
The last time BJP lost Karnataka after being in power for a full term was in 2013. A key damaging factor then was internal squabbles that led to the exit of Lingayat leader B S Yediyurappa who then floated the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP).
The KJP vote share was under 10 per cent (9.79 per cent) and it had won just six seats in the 224-member Assembly in 2013, but this sank the BJP in as many as 26 seats it had won in 2008 in the Lingayat belts, when the party went on to form its first government in south India.
In the recently concluded Assembly polls, a phenomenon linked to the Lingayat leader Yediyurappa played a crucial and direct role in the BJP’s losses in at least 10 seats in the central Karnataka region. Though Yediyurappa did not exit the BJP this time, the party eased him out of power in 2021.
While Congress swept the polls, the BJP tally in the Lingayat belts this time is 31 out of 113 seats as compared to 56 out of 113 five years ago; the Congress has upped its tally in these regions from 50 to 78.
The presence of as many as 10 Opposition candidates who are known associates of the former CM — in the fray either for the Congress or the Janata Dal (Secular) or as Independents after rebelling against the party — hurt the BJP’s prospects. The biggest blow delivered by the Yediyurappa factor was in Chikmagalur, where BJP national general secretary C T Ravi was defeated by Congress candidate H D Thammaiah by 5,926 votes. Thammaiah is a Lingayat and has been a close associate of Yediyurappa. He quit the BJP on the eve of the polls to join the Congress.
The defeat of Ravi, a four-time MLA who was considered a CM candidate in the party, is being seen as political revenge for his perceived opposition to Yediyurappa and his son Vijayendra, who is also aspiring to be a top BJP leader in the state. On March 14, Ravi, who is from the Vokkaliga community, suggested that Yediyurappa and his son were no longer dominant forces in the party. “Just remember one thing. The decision on candidates will not be taken in anyone’s kitchen. Nobody will get a ticket because they are somebody’s son,” Ravi said, referring to Vijayendra.
According to BJP sources, the former CM did not campaign for Ravi in the polls.
In Chikamagalur district’s Mudigere seat, Yediyurappa loyalist M P Kumaraswamy exited the BJP on the eve of the elections and contested for the JD(S). Congress’s Nayana Jawahar, a first-time candidate, won the seat by a narrow margin of 722 votes.
In the Hirekerur constituency in Haveri district, Yediyurappa loyalist UB Banakar, a Lingayat who quit the BJP last December to join the Congress, toppled state Agriculture Minister B C Patil. Among the other such seats where Yediyurappa loyalists contesting for the Opposition damaged the BJP is Chikkanayakanahalli in the Tumakuru region where Kiran Kumar delivered a blow to Law Minister J C Madhuswamy who lost by 10,042 votes to C B Suresh Babu of the JD(S). Kumar, a Lingayat, joined the Congress before the polls,
In Davangere district’s Channagiri constituency, former BJP MLA Madal Virupakshappa’s son Mallikarjun contested as an Independent. Virupakshappa is a close associate of the former CM and was denied the BJP ticket after being arrested in a corruption case in the run-up to the elections. Mallikarjun lost by 16,435 votes to the Congress candidate, with the BJP candidate coming third with 21,467 votes.
BJP sources said the Yediyurappa effect also played out in several constituencies with large numbers of Lingayat voters who rejected the party’s candidates even as the former CM refrained from campaigning for them.
In the Tiptur seat, for example, Lingayat candidate K Shadakshari fielded by the Congress defeated the BJP’s state school education minister B C Nagesh — best known for meddling with dress codes in schools and banning the hijab — by 17,652 votes.
Ahead of the elections, the BJP, like in 2013, was a faction-ridden entity with loyalties attached to as many as groups linked to Yediyurappa, the party’s national general secretary for organisation B L Santhosh, CM Basavaraj Bommai, and the BJP’s central leadership.
The BJP lost nearly 4 per cent of its vote share from 2018, when it won 104 seats, in the Lingayat-dominated Mumbai Karnataka, Hyderabad Karnataka, and central Karnataka regions where Yediyurappa’s writ is known to run in the community. The BJP lost as many as 25 of the 56 seats it had won in these regions in 2018.
The BJP’s experiment with fielding new candidates in 55 Assembly seats in the state yielded victories only in 13 seats, including for Vijayendra who defeated Congress rebel S P Nagaraja Gowda in Shikaripura by 11,008 votes. Gowda contested as an Independent against the official Congress candidate Goni Malthesh.
The BJP which dropped as many as 22 of its sitting MLAs for the polls was able to win only six of the seats where it changed its MLA candidate, including the Hubli-Dharwad Central seat where former CM Jagadish Shettar was replaced by party worker Mahesh Tenginkai. Shettar who contested on a Congress ticket lost to Tenginkai by 34,289 votes.
