Can Congress outfox Shah?

Karnataka polls 2018

For those who believe it sets the national tone, electoral politics in Karnataka has always been a matter of great concern. However, unlike at the Centre, it is the Congress defending its position in the state against anti-incumbency, while the BJP is fervently hoping to succeed for a second time in South India. For both parties, though, the elections in Karnataka hint at their survival and revival.

Karnataka’s incumbent chief minister has already predicted publicly that it will be here that his party will revive itself with a win and, revive at the Centre as the Grand Old Party in opposition. The BJP has similarly vowed to win 150 seats and realise its vision (if one may even call it that) of a Congress-mukt Bharat. What both parties have in common in the state is that their fates will be decided largely by the votes cast by the backward classes.

In Karnataka, for the moment, there is no solid hint that anti-incumbent votes will be cast. This is arguably the most optimistic view as far as Congress is concerned; the ruling party seems to be safe while for the BJP seems to be facing many hurdles in its way. However, of late, appearances have betrayed little of the coming reality in politics.

From the time the Rayanna Brigade took shape and provided an alternative political space, challenging AHINDA, there seems to be a simmering fear among higher BJP ranks that all is not well in the party’s state wing. Indeed, torn between Eshwarappa’s rise and the high-handed centralised leadership of Yeddyurappa, which the former staunchly opposes, the party has found itself looking for support from the Centre once too often. So far, two interventions by their boss Amit Shah have been in vain.

Arbitration efforts by the party general secretary in charge of Karnataka Muralidhar Rao has only widened the rifts in the state BJP and has, perhaps unwittingly, made the RSS’s role in the party conspicuous.

If anything, Shah’s stern warning has made his party appear outwardly calmer in the state but has done little to convince people of lasting stability within the party. All this has caused political pundits to foresee a fight between a backward-class led leadership and the centralised, vested interests of the upper castes in the BJP in the run up to the 2018 elections.

Following the Nanjangud election, the BJP appeared to have run out of ideas to fight the Congress with. The latter has, with a host of pro-poor policies and populist programmes coupled with cultural issues – in all likelihood whipped up to counter the BJP’s efforts at the Centre – left the state wing of the BJP in disarray. The BJP lacks new ideas and narratives to counter the Congress.

Observing the dimming spirits of most members of the BJP, with some exceptions like the Vistarak activists, Amit Shah recently visited the state. The fact that his itinerary involved several influential Hindu maths only lead to speculation in political circles that the BJP was looking to replicate their UP strategy in Karnataka and that there may be a ‘Yogi’ in this state who would be propped as the head of a potential BJP government. This idea, however, did not step much beyond the realm of speculation.

Shah’s three-day visit involved over 24 meetings — with intellectuals, party leaders, workers from booth levels and the social media heads — to launch the party’s so-called Mission 150. Shah seems to have left with waning hopes: he kept emphasizing that it was important to retain seats already won by his party rather than come up with novel ways of winning more seats.

His analysis of the BJP’s performance in the assembly elections between 2004 and 2013 unremarkably concluded that the party needed different strategies for different segments and that leaders from the central ministry had to be invited to work for the party at the state-level. These may have worked in the past but they still are nothing but the BJP’s old approaches that have lived past their prime and, if anything, hint at Shah’s helplessness in rejuvenating his party’s cadres with new techniques.

To make matters worse, his aggressive prompts to voice BJP slogans and force the Congress’s D K Shivakumar to resign from his ministry left the party with a shrill but empty voice. His call for his party’s leaders to focus on strengthening the BJP in the state seems, in fact, to have fallen on deaf ears. There seems to be no enthusiasm left among the state BJP to fight the Congress and cajoling the party’s leaders has, so far, seemed unlikely to change that.

Congress and complacency

Yet, electoral politics is still a gamble that demands that nothing be left to chance. Armed with district and (Lok Sabha) constituency-specific data, Shah’s hunt for promising constituencies and his decision to concentrate on weak constituencies is no exercise in a vacuum. His call for nourishing alternative leaders in Congress and JD(S) strongholds is no doubt intended to nurture a younger generation of leaders for the party and bring in new faces for use in the coming elections. This is something the Congress should not take lightly.

His decision to play the Hindutva card in coastal Karnataka, his attempts at countering dominant communities in cer-
tain constituencies and his wooing of majority communities in certain others are all significant strategies to fight the party he sees as his lone enemy, the Congress. The JD(S) has weakened over time and has just a few constituencies to its name; it is, to Shah, an unimportant player.

In these uncertain times, the Congress cannot rest on its weak populist or strategic cultural moves or even depend on the payback politics of filing cases against BJP leaders. It must constantly be on guard and publicise its achievements in government over the last four years. Far too few people are aware of these.

The elections in 2018 offer much to the BJP’s advantage and pose just as many questions for the Congress’s survival. It is up to the Congress and its leadership to understand this and work to turn this weakness into an advantage. Complacency will dim their future.

(The writer, a political analyst, teaches political science at Karnatak University, Dharwad)