Lok Sabha elections 2019: In Karnataka, coalition math key to Opposition strategy
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByAbhishek Jha
May 02, 2020 08:05 PM IST
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 17 out of the 28 seats in Karnataka in the 2014 elections. Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP has consistently performed well.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 17 out of the 28 seats in Karnataka in the 2014 elections. Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP has consistently performed well.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 17 out of the 28 seats in Karnataka in the 2014 elections.(AP File Photo)
Even in 2004 and 2009, when the BJP got lesser seats than the Congress at the all-India level, it finished ahead of the Congress in Karnataka, winning 18 and 19 seats respectively. With the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) coming together in an alliance in 2019, the political equation has changed in the state.
The BJP had won 11 out of the 14 seats in Karnataka which will go to polls on Tuesday. The constituencies are in a region where the JD(S) does not have much of a presence.
The BJP was ahead of the combined vote share of the Congress and the JD(S) in these 14 seats in both 2009 and 2014. Comparisons before 2009 are not possible because of change in constituency boundaries due to delimitation.
A simple addition of Congress and JD(S) vote shares for 2014 at the parliamentary constituency (PC) level would have reduced the BJP’s tally in these seats by just one.
What is interesting is that the potential gains from a Congress-JD(S) alliance appear to be much bigger in assembly elections. A PC-wise extrapolation of 2008, 2013 and 2018 assembly elections shows that the Congress-JD(S) are significantly ahead of the BJP both in terms of seat share and vote share.
While both the Congress and the BJP tend to lose vote share in the assembly elections, the JD(S) seems to be making gains at the cost of the two national parties.
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To be sure, the extraordinary dent in the BJP’s 2013 performance could also be a result of defection of important leaders such as B S Yeddyurappa and B Sriramulu from the party.
See Chart 1: LS and Assembly vote share of Congress-JD(S) and BJP in 14 seats
While voter preferences vary in national and state elections, the rather large gap between the performances of the Congress and the JD(S) between the two is a bit intriguing.
One possible explanation for this could be the fact that the JD(S) was seen to be less capable of winning in the Lok Sabha polls against the two national parties.
In fact, the JD(S) did not contest all of the 14 seats scheduled for polling Tuesday in both 2009 and 2014. The important question to be asked in 2019 is whether an alliance with the Congress will boost the mutual gains to both the JD(S) and the Congress in these 14 seats in the state.
If the November 2018 bypolls for Shivamogga and Ballari PCs are an indicator, this could indeed be a possibility. The BJP won both these seats in 2009 and 2014. However, the Congress was able to wrest Ballari from the BJP and the JD(S) candidate was able to reduce the BJP’s 2014 victory margin by 27 percentage points in Shivamogga.
To be sure, the Shivamogga bypoll results also show that the Congress-JD(S) lead in assembly elections might not translate in Lok Sabha elections.
The combined vote share of the Congress and the JD(S) was 7.4 percentage points more than that of the BJP in Shivamogga PC in the 2018 assembly elections.
While the Congress-JD(S) alliance might enjoy the tailwinds from a better than usual performance by the JD(S) in these seats, it could also face potential headwinds from discontent within Congress ranks due to giving up seats to the JD(S).
Out of the three PCs – Bijapur, Uttar Kannada and Shivamogga – which the Congress has given to the JD(S) as part of the alliance, the JD(S) did not even contest Uttar Kannada and polled only 6% of the popular vote in Bijapur. The Congress might have a difficult time in convincing its local leaders to rally behind what they could perceive as a top-down alliance with the JD(S).
