JOIN USDecoding Shah’s tirade against Deve Gowda’s party
Poll calculators have been beeping to decode the intention behind Union Home Minister Amit Shah's call for the JD(S) to be finished in the 2023 Assembly election.
At a massive gathering of the BJP's booth presidents in Bengaluru, Shah last week mounted a fierce attack on the JD(S).
Perhaps, Shah wanted to hit two targets with one arrow. The declaration that the BJP would fight the polls alone was a message to his own party men that he will not tolerate "adjustment" politics – the convention you-help-me-I-help-you approach. Second, by attacking the JD(S), Shah could be trying to ensure Vokkaliga votes consolidate in favour of the regional party, denting the Congress' prospects in the Old Mysusu region - a key political geography where the JD(S) and Congress have been traditional rivals.
The Old Mysusu region, which comprises 61 seats excluding 28 constituencies in Bengaluru, has been an Achilles heel for the BJP.
The call given to BJP workers to decimate the JD(S) by Shah has enthused the cadre, reminiscent of the late Ananth Kumar’s tenure as BJP state president (2003-04) when the saffron party, for the first time, won over 12 seats in the Vokkaliga heartland besides winning 18 seats in Bengaluru.
Several BJP leaders feel that the party could not breach the JD(S) fortress due to frequently changing candidates and its failure to help or recognize workers from the region.
“BJP and RSS have together failed to work hard and expand their influencers' network in the region for a long time. It's high time that both need to work hard to develop their own network first here,” one RSS leader said.
Speaking to DH, BJP state general secretary Ashwathnarayan Gowda said after the 2004 Assembly election, somehow the BJP has not made a major dent in the region. “Shah has realised that the BJP has potential to win seats in the region if the party is able to come out with formidable social engineering formula and right candidate,” he said and added that the party may not be able to decimate JD(S), but can surely attract leaders from both parties to jump ship.
According to BJP MLC Tejaswini Gowda, who famously defeated H D Deve Gowda in the 2004 Lok Sabha election (she was with Congress then), the absence of strong Vokkaliga leadership within the saffron party has proved detrimental. “Perhaps, one of the major reasons could be the steady rise of BS Yediyurappa that coincided with the decline of Janata Parivar in north Karnataka where leaders joined the BJP. We need to build leaders in the Vokkaliga belt," she said.
In the Old Mysuru region, the BJP will fight elections on its promise of building a Ram Mandir at Ramdevara Betta (in Ramanagara) and against the "overt display" of parivarvaad of the JD(S) besides development issues, senior BJP worker MH Sridhar said.
Senior Congressman B L Shankar, however, said the BJP’s plans to decimate the JD(S) would come in handy for the Congress. “If the BJP fields strong candidates in the region it would only benefit the Congress. The more BJP presses for Hindutva card or the growing disenchantment of Yediyurappa, it could help Congress," he guessed.
Political analyst Sandeep Shastri said that the BJP has succeeded in replacing erstwhile Janata Parivar in coastal, Malnad and North Karnataka regions by occupying the anti-Congress space. “But, due to the presence of JD(S), it has failed to achieve the same success in the Vokkaliga belt. However, it has succeeded in splitting Vokkaliga votes in a three-way contest," he said. "Now they are likely to focus on garnering OBC votes as well in order to win more seats. This may, in the long run, prove detrimental to JD(S),” he explained.