BJP makes foray into JD(S), Cong bastion

Dr B H Manjunath

Even as the Modi 2.0 government takes charge at the Centre, the BJP leaders of the Mysuru region are happy as the JD(S)-Congress coalition has helped them consolidate their position and win an additional Lok Sabha seat, to improve the vote share in a seat and also to throw weight behind the winning candidate in one seat.

While retaining the Mysore-Kodagu LS segment, with the re-election of Pratap Simha, the BJP opened account in the Chamarajanagar constituency, with the victory of V Srinivas Prasad.

Similarly, in Hassan, the candidature of A Manju, who returned to the BJP, after a decade, improved the vote share for the party. In Mandya, even though A Sumalatha was an Independent, the BJP did not field a candidate and extended external support.

Tremendous growth

Hassan MLA Preetham J Gowda said that even though the JD(S)-Congress coalition candidate Prajwal Revanna has won in the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, the vote share of the BJP has grown from 14.54% in the 2014 polls to 41.9%.

“For example, the votes polled in favour of the BJP candidate A Manju in Holenarsipur and Channarayapatna taluks are 47,000 and 55,000 plus respectively. The votes secured by the BJP in the 2018 Assembly poll were 3,000 and 5,000 plus respectively,” he said.

“If the coalition were to be a success, Prajwal Revanna, son of PWD Minister H D Revanna, should have polled nearly 80% of the total valid votes. It has to be recalled that in 2014, out of 11,39,838 votes polled, the JD(S) (H D Deve Gowda) had polled 5,09,841 votes and the Congress (Manju, BJP candidate in 2019) had secured 4,09,379 votes. This time, the BJP managed to get 5,35,282 votes,” he said.

He said, “While 50% of the non-BJP votes polled in favour of the BJP was due to the Modi wave, the remaining 50% is the anti-JD(S) votes, with no option to vote for the Congress.”

Modi wave

Mysuru city (district) BJP president Dr B H Manjunath said that neither the success of the coalition nor its failure had an effect in this election.

“The Modi wave was so strong that all political calculations failed against the love and trust of the people on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP has been able to increase its vote share and consolidate its position in Mysuru region, deemed to be the bastion of the JD(S) so far, where the Congress was the prime opposition party,” he said.

Not good for BJP

A senior BJP leader, on condition of anonymity, said that the dependence of the party on just one leader, to win the polls across the nation, is a dangerous trend.

“Even the Prime Minister is a human. How much stress can he take? He has criss-crossed the nation to ensure the victory of the candidates in a majority of the constituencies. The other leaders and the elected representatives should share his responsibility. They should also be a support system to the party as a whole. They should live up to the expectations of the people on the Prime Minister. Otherwise, the improvement will be a temporary one,” the leader said.