Banking on BSY in Karnataka

The appointment of Vijayendra needs to be seen also in the context of the BJP tying up with the Janata Dal (Secular) headed by former prime minister Deve Gowda. The JD(S), once a pan-state outfit with a secular vote base, has now been reduced to a sub-regional outfit with influence limited mostly among Vokkaligas, a dominant peasant caste in southern Karnataka. In the recent assembly elections, the JD(S)’s vote share declined to 13.2% from 18.3% (in 2018). The fall in the vote was attributed to Muslims switching their support to the Congress. Incidentally, the Congress vote in 2023 went up to 42% from 38% in 2018 while the BJP’s share stayed around 36%. Arithmetic may suggest that a BJP-JD(S) combine will trump the Congress by a mile.

But politics is not merely arithmetic. And any perception of two dominant communities aligning for power can trigger a backlash: The AHINDA combination of backwards, SCs and Muslims built by Congress CM Devaraj Urs in the 1970s was a coming together of the underprivileged. The BJP’s course correction, then, has to look beyond personalities, and caste coalition, and reflect on the tone and tenor of its recent political discourse. BSY cultivated a communitarian politics that built on a politics of patronage of mathas of various sects — mathas are not just religious centres but economic entities engaged in the distribution of resources as well. The post-BSY leadership privileged a hard Hindutva line that polarised the state so much that it has nearly become a bipolar polity, with faith emerging as a new fault line. Karnataka was not comfortable with that politics. The vote for Vijayendra may well be recognition of that.