Following UP-Bihar playbook, Karnataka BJP seeks to trump Cong’s social calculus, guns for Siddaramaiah

The Kuruba-Muslim base has been a key component in the grand old party’s social arithmetic that could play a role in a majority of the seats in the May 10 state Assembly polls.

This strategy of the BJP is increasingly becoming evident as the party is gunning for the Kuruba stalwart and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah besides targeting the Muslims community through moves like scrapping of its 4% backward class reservation.

The BJP’s attempts are aimed at dismantling the Congress’s AHINDA support structure and devising a winning formula with OBCs, Dalits, and dominant castes like Lingayats (17 per cent of the state’s population) and Vokkaligas (15 per cent of the population) on the plank of Hindutva and development.

The BJP has worked out this new strategy on account of its failure to win a clear majority in the state till now on the basis of a caste strategy centred on Lingayats – with ex-chief minister and Lingayat stalwart B S Yediyurappa as its face – and coalition of other communities inclined towards the BJP through Hindutva, including sections of Dalits and tribals.

OBC Kurubas (who constitute about seven of the 33 per cent OBC population) and Muslims (who make up around 12 per cent population) are the communities that are spread across most of the state’s total 224 constituencies unlike Lingayats, who are largely based in about 80 Assembly constituencies in north Karnataka, and Vokkaligas, who mainly inhabit 75 constituencies in southern part of the state.

“The Kuruba-Muslim combination – on the lines of the M-Y vote banks in north India – has the potential to decide the fate of candidates in a majority of the seats because it is numerically larger than any other combination. This is why the BJP is targeting Siddaramaiah because he unites these two communities and poses a threat for all candidates not backed by the combination,” said a Congress leader associated with Siddaramaiah.

While the BJP has gone after Siddaramaiah in the past by addressing him with names like “Siddaramullah” for being a supporter of Muslims, its increasing attacks on them is now revealing the saffron party’s election game plan.

In its recent rallies, the BJP has also accused Siddaramaiah of having worked only for the welfare of Kurubas and worked against communities like the Dalit Left sub-group among SCs when he was the Congress CM during 2013- 2018.

“During Siddaramaiah’s tenure as the CM only one community made progress. What kind of policy is that? They did not commit to provide internal reservations despite claiming to support the SCs/STs. The Congress party has double standards. There is a difference between their conduct and their words,” CM Basavaraj Bommai charged on April 6 at an event where he was felicitated by the BJP for providing internal quotas for Dalits.

“The Congress has caused the ruin of Dalit leaders like K H Muniyappa and G Parameshwara. They kept quiet after an attack on Akhanda Srinivas Murthy and did not allow Mallikarjun Kharge to become the CM. Please tell all your people that the Congress party will take away reservations but the BJP will take it forward,” Union minister Pralhad Joshi told a gathering last week.

According to Congress insiders, Siddaramaiah has the “wherewithal to decide the fate of candidates in many seats”. The defeat of the SC Right leader Parameshwara in 2013, when he was the state Congress chief and a frontrunner in the CM race, was attributed to Siddaramaiah, who became the CM then. The Koratagere seat where Parameshwara was defeated has a sizeable Kuruba vote base.

The defeat of Muniyappa in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Kolar is also often linked to the lack of support from Siddaramaiah.

While Dalits, OBCs, and STs were considered part of the Congress’s support base in the past, the BJP has managed to splinter it to some degree since 2008. The SC Left (six per cent of the 17 per cent SC population) has allied with the BJP to an extent and the STs (7 per cent population) have also been inclined to back the BJP.

At the village level, the SC and ST groups are considered to have an adversarial relation for resources with the middle castes like Kurubas, who are also regarded as having similar equations with Vokkaligas and to a lesser extent, with Lingayats.

Significantly, Yediyurappa has always refrained from attacking Siddaramaiah, suggesting an understanding of the use of each other’s caste strengths.
The Congress is widely believed to have lost the 2018 polls under Siddaramaiah’s leadership on account of perceived resentment among several

communities against the Kuruba community’s ascendancy during his chief ministerial tenure. The Congress had won 80 seats in the 2018 polls as compared to the BJP’s 104 and the JD(S)’s 37 seats.
The recent entry of two JD(S) MLAs to the Congress in Hassan and Tumkur districts under Siddaramaiah’s stewardship underlines the Kuruba-Muslim calculus in play.
JD(S) MLA Shivalinge Gowda has switched to the Congress in Hassan’s

Arasikere seat and S R Srinivas has moved to the Congress in Tumkur’s Gubbi seat. The Kuruba-Muslim combination in Arasikere accounts for a total of 35 per cent (20 plus 15) population, which coupled with the candidate’s Vokkaliga caste (15 per cent, usually allied to the JDS), has the potential to trump the 24 per cent vote base of Lingayats (who usually back the BJP).

In Gubbi, there is a 26 per cent Kuruba-Muslim (18 plus 8) combination along with a 26 per cent Vokkaliga vote (which is expected to be split between the JD(S) and the Congress) and a 33 per cent Lingayat vote, which seemingly puts the new Congress entrant from JD(S) on a strong footing in the poll calculus.

The BJP has claimed that the party’s poll strategy in Karnataka, like in other states, is based on the development agenda of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and that caste only plays a peripheral role.
“In every Assembly seat, nearly 70 to 80 per cent of the people are beneficiaries of one scheme or the other of the state and central governments. We want to convert them into voters of the BJP and we have drawn up a big plan for it,” the party’s national general secretary C T Ravi had recently said following its core committee meeting. “This plan brought us success in Gujarat and UP and it will be used in Karnataka as well. This has been decided by the core committee,” he added.

Population of major communities in Karnataka

Lingayats – 17%

Vokkaligas – 12-15%

Muslims – 12%

SCs – 17% (SC Left 6%, SC Right 5.5%, SC “touchable” 4.5%)

STs – 7%

OBCs – 33% (Kurubas – 6%, Idigas – 5%, plus over 100 smaller OBCs)