Political parties go into acceleration mode

With the announcement of calendar of events for the Assembly elections, the three major political parties in the State have gone into an acceleration mode.

The Karnataka elections — that are likely to be a three-way fight between the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, and Janata Dal (Secular) — remain largely unpredictable as even the slightest swing in votes can lead to wild differences in vote share.

For instance, a gain of less than 2% vote share by the Congress in the 2013 elections, compared to its 2008 performance saw its seats shoot up by 42. In the past four elections — when the State largely became a three-party electoral affair — the Congress’ vote share has remained between 34.5% and 40.5%.

And so, any anti-incumbency swing has a disproportionate impact on the seats for the party whose vote is stretched across the State. That is, Congress is a contender in south Karnataka as it is in the coast as well as Hyderabad Karnataka. This has perhaps seen the Congress raise its tally of MLAs and spheres of control. MLAs from 15 other constituencies joined the Congress. BJP’s factions of KJP and BSRCP have largely come back, and its tally has crossed the half-century mark.

Electoral data shows that a slight swing in favour of the BJP will dramatically increase its seat count as its voters are consolidated in certain constituencies. For instance, in 2008, the BJP could win 110 seats with one-third of the vote share, while the Congress with a slightly higher vote share could win only 80.

All of this has come at the cost of JD(S) whose presence is being contained largely in rural south Karnataka. With BJP having unified, at least five JD(S) MLAs are likely to have a tough fight this time.