Southern Lights | Lok Sabha election a tightrope walk for BJP’s new Karnataka president

BY Vijayendra will have to unite a divided party, and bank on both Lingayat and Vokkaliga votes to score high in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections

The poll bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha election is perhaps just a fortnight away from being officially sounded. The stakes for all parties are high, but more so for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because it has put the cart before the horse by announcing that it would secure 370 out of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats this time around. To meet this number, one of the states that will have to measure up to its big brothers in the Gangetic belt is Karnataka. And the saffron party has put its stock in a 47-year-old ‘dynast’, BY Vijayendra, who is leading the party from the front today. Behind Vijayendra lies a crushing 66-seat loss to the Congress in the May 2023 assembly elections, and more than just a few snags within his party. Ahead lies the number 28 - the state’s aggregate of Lok Sabha seats. What would Vijayendra’s tally be?

Karnataka BJP chief BY Vijayendra (PTI)

When BY Vijayendra was named president of the BJP’s Karnataka state unit in November 2023, six months after the party lost the assembly elections to the Congress, there was as much relief as there was discomfort within the party. The party cadre across the state rose in celebration because a Lingayat leader, no less than the son of their strong man and former chief minister BS Yediyurappa (BSY), was going to lead them. Equally, the top brass was left to deal with discomfort because many other prominent names and faces were sidelined to please and pacify the all-powerful Lingayat community, that decided to truck with the Congress during the Karnataka assembly election.

This would remain the newly-minted BJP state president of his biggest challenge until the conclusion of this year’s Lok Sabha elections. The Lingayats command 15% of the vote share in the state and they ostensibly threw their weight around the Congress leaders, electing 37 leaders from the community compared to BJP’s 19. Karnataka has been the only state that the BJP has managed to win in southern India, seizing it from the Congress and HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) for the first time in 2008. A senior Veerashaiva-Lingayat leader from the central Karnataka region who spoke with HT spoke, said that they saw this move of appointing BY Vijayendra as more than just an acknowledgement of BSY’s contribution to the party. “We have seen the party grow from a two-seat outfit to what it is now – a direct challenge to the Congress. Over the years, it was BS Yediyurappa, KS Eashwarappa, Jagadish Shettar, and the late Ananth Kumar who built the party in the state. Time and again when the BJP sidelined Yediyurappa, they paid the price for it. Caste is very important in a state like ours and senior leaders must understand that there is a huge difference between the way BJP operates in the centre and the way it operates in the state. Bringing back Vijayendra is BJP’s acknowledgement of BSY’s understanding of party politics in the state. I hope their move this time around is not just damage control, because our cadre still needs to be convinced of the senior leadership’s intent.” The Lingayat leader declined to be named because he is party to key decisions made in his district.

Vijayendra wasted no time after being sworn in to woo the Lingayats back. In the first 72 hours after the announcement of his appointment on November 10 last year, he met senior leaders of his community, followed by those from the Vokkaliga community on day 2, and other backward classes (OBCs) leaders on day 3. Having risen from the ranks of a BJP Yuva Morcha Secretary and vice-president of the Bengaluru unit in 1999, to vice-president of the party in 2020, Vijayendra had ample time as an apprentice under his father.

But sooner than the cadre could celebrate the ‘return of their king’, Vijayendra’s appointment and manoeuvres ruffled the BJP leadership in the state. Senior BJP loyalists CT Ravi, V Somanna, CN Ashwath Narayan, R Ashok and Arvind Bellad were seen making snarky remarks. CT Ravi, who was BJP’s Tamil Nadu in-charge and former National General Secretary of the party, was the first to express his displeasure. “This is not an ask for power; it is for responsibility. And this responsibility is not something that is taken by asking for it. I am not an aspirant for any post, and in the last two-and-a-half decades, I have not asked for any post but I have fulfilled every responsibility given to me by my party.” Prof C Puranik, a political analyst, says the situation would be a litmus test for Vijayendra to see how he can bring together a divided house. “I have followed Karnataka politics for nearly 50 years now. The political timing of appointing Vijayendra could not have been better because Karnataka is the only southern state that can fetch the BJP a double-digit tally in the 2024 general elections, given the current situation. And with the state being divided not only along caste lines but also by different regions, the new president has to be seen to be taking all the senior leaders along.” Several others refused to show up at the celebration organised by the party when Vijayendra was named president, choosing to remain in their constituencies.

The state BJP leaders say the appointment of Vijayendra is getting difficult to defend because the party has always criticised the Congress for its ‘parivar vad’ (dynastic) politics. However, the critics within and outside the BJP who look at Vijayendra’s appointment as a proxy for his father, do acknowledge that both Vijayendra and his older brother BY Raghavendra have been steady backroom boys, standing by their father and learning the ropes from him right from the time the party was being nurtured in the state. The BSY family’s reinstatement into the BJP is being perceived as the victory of bottom-up politics rather than top-down politics, where Delhi dictates how a state unit is led. Sathyan, a political analyst who closely monitors Tamil Nadu and Karnataka politics, reckons there is much ground to cover to win back the trust of the party cadre. “By distancing Yediyurappa and nominating his son as the state party president, the BJP has sent out a mixed signal – we do not want you, but we want the votes you command. It is this perception that Vijayendra will have to work to distance, without even being sure of his position after the 2024 election.”

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 26 of Karnataka’s 28 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general election, with the BJP scoring 25. Actor Sumalatha, who contested and won as an independent candidate from Mandya, later pledged her support to the BJP. To pull off a similar feat in 2024, Vijayendra also needs the full cooperation of the JDS and the Vokkaliga vote share. He named the Mysore region as one of his key priorities to work on in his first statement after being elected to the top post. The likelihood of crossing 20 seats hinges on Mysore, which was always considered the JDS’ bastion until they conceded it to the Congress in the last assembly election. The Vokkaligas, the other dominant caste in Karnataka, account for 16% of the vote share and the community had split their votes between the Congress and BJP in 2023. Prof Puranik sums up Vijayendra’s task as a fine balancing act. On this tightrope walk, he needs to win to assure the Lingayats of loyalty while allowing the Vokkaligas a voice in at least four seats where they can swing the election results.

Deepika Amirapu is a freelance journalist based in Hyderabad. Each week, Southern Lights examines the big story from one of the five states of South India.