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Journalism of Courage
As the high-pitched campaign for the Assembly elections in Karnataka reaches the final stages, one thing is becoming very clear – the Congress has not invested this heavily in a state election in recent years, at least not since 2019. The grand old party is smelling victory and it believes a BJP defeat could herald its electoral comeback.
Karnataka is one of the few states where the Congress has a strong organisational presence and a formidable leadership, appealing to all major caste groups. Much is at stake for Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge too, as a resounding victory in his home state will be more than a symbolic milestone in the party’s quest for 2024.
A victory will also give the Congress bragging rights as the party tries to cobble together like-minded Opposition parties to form some sort of an anti-BJP front to take on the Modi juggernaut in the general elections next year.
The importance the party attaches to this election is evident from how Kharge is camping in the state and the extensive campaigning by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. It is for the first time that the Gandhi siblings are waging such an aggressive campaign for a state election in tandem.
Karnataka and the Congress have a bitter-sweet history, a story of ups and downs with national impact and resonance. In 1969, when the grand old party suffered its first major split, the party’s president was S Nijalingappa, the stalwart Lingayat leader and the two-time former Chief Minister of Karnataka. With the old guard or the Syndicate behind him, Nijalingappa went ahead and expelled Indira, who was then the Prime Minister. But she only grew in strength, survived a no-confidence motion in Parliament, and despite being forced to adopt a new electoral symbol (the cow and the calf), called for elections ahead of schedule in 1971, and came back with a two-third majority.
Karnataka was at the heart of national politics again in 1978, a year after Indira was swept out of power by the ragtag Janata Party coalition. In January 1978, Indira split the Congress. As she was expelled from the party, the former PM stared at an uncertain political future.
Again, it was Karnataka that gave her the much-needed boost. A month later, her Congress (I) won a landslide victory in the state Assembly elections, even as the main Congress was wiped out.
She turned to Karnataka again later that year to contest a by-election from Chikmagalur Lok Sabha seat, and trounced her Janata contender Veerendra Patil.
The slogan, ‘Ek Sherni, Sau Langur; Chikmagalur, Chikmagalur’, was etched in India’s political lexicon, with Indira’s victory heralding her comeback.
A year later, Congress politics again took a turn in Karnataka. Chief Minister Devraj Urs, a strong loyalist of Indira, left the party, and formed a separate party.
In 1989, Karnataka was back at the heart of the action when the Congress returned to power in the state in a spectacular fashion after a gap of six years. This bucked the trend at a time when the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress lost the national elections, to a Janata Dal coalition.
In 1999, when Sonia Gandhi decided to finally take the political plunge, after Rajiv’s assassination, she chose Bellary in Karnataka. The BJP rushed in Sushma Swaraj to take her on, and their duel hogged national attention.
In this election, the Congress lost yet again nationally, though Sonia won, and the party romped home victorious in the Karnataka state elections, pulverizing the favourite JD(U)-BJP combine.
2023 is fundamentally and drastically different from all those past years. The only similarity perhaps is that the Congress is at its lowest ebb electorally and is looking for Karnataka to provide it the much-needed boost, a year ahead of the national elections and months ahead of polls in key states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
