Congress looks to break a jinx in chase of magic number

The jinx is that the party has managed to cross the magic number of 113 in the 224-member Assembly only when there is a split in its opposition

The Congress, upbeat about the 2023 Assembly election, faces a jinx and stagnant vote share that it must overcome in order to cross the magic number.

The jinx, peculiar to the Congress since 1989, is that the party has managed to cross the magic number of 113 in the 224-member Assembly only when there is a split in its opposition.

In the 1989 election, the Congress won 179 seats with a 43.76% vote share even as there was a split in the Janata Party. The Congress came to power 10 years later in 1999, when Janata Dal divided and the H D Deve Gowda-led JD(S) was born. The next time it came to power on its own was 2013 when B S Yediyurappa broke away from the BJP.

“The actual strength of the Congress in the state is 60-70 seats,” former JD(S) chief minister H D Kumaraswamy said, pointing out the jinx. “In 2013, the Congress won not because of their effort, but because Yediyurappa quit BJP.”

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Since 1999, the Congress’ vote share has stayed in the 35-40% range.

“We haven’t improved on our vote base,” a senior Congress leader conceded and said the party needs an additional 4-5 percentage points increase in vote share to break the jinx.

Even when AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge was heading the Karnataka Congress (2005-2008), the party’s vote share did not increase. “In 2013, while we managed to get some Lingayat votes because of the split in the BJP, we lost Banjaras and other SC/ST votes,” the leader said.

Apparently, the Congress leadership has discussed data points surrounding the jinx, particularly on how the party has failed to garner the additional vote share.

The additional vote share the Congress is looking for has to come from a united OBC and ST/ST cohort coupled with a split in the upper community votes (Lingayats and Vokkaligas). And, that is why party leaders have been asked to ensure they do not antagonise castes, sources said.

As a result, the Congress has toed a safe line on the BJP government’s decision to hike SC/ST reservation. Also, the “rhetoric” on the demand for a separate Lingayat religion has stopped, sources said.

A section of party leaders is urging Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah to tone down. For example, there is a concern within the party that Siddaramaiah’s repeated use of the word pedda (dumb) for BJP’s B Sriramulu might antagonise the Valmiki (ST) community he belongs to.