The narrative of ‘regional identity’ and ‘Kannada’ that marked the run-up to the Assembly elections held in May this year seems to be losing much of its sheen as Lok Sabha polls near. In his Karnataka Rajyotsava address, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy restricted himself to an appeal for “defying divisive voices”, without straying into any grand narrative on regional pride and federalism.
It was in the recently concluded Assembly elections that the ‘identity’ question came to the fore of the electoral discourse, after the Gokak movement during the 1983 polls. But, did the Kannada question fail to reap expected dividends for the Congress, and is it why it is on the back burner?
Political scientist Sandeep Shastri, national coordinator, Lokniti Network, said he wouldn’t term the Kannada and regional identity plank a failure in the 2018 polls. “That particular agenda of the Congress got intermeshed with several other factors — Lingayat minority status issue, anti-incumbency, and so on. I believe the Congress did get some currency because of the regional agenda, but it was not enough to withstand anti-incumbency,” he said.
However, strategists close to Mr. Siddaramaiah do not believe the Kannada agenda gave them any currency and one of them termed it a “missed opportunity” as the Congress national leadership developed cold feet on pursuing it aggressively. “There were concerns raised by the Congress over Siddaramaiah batting for a separate flag and the plank was left midway. The Congress, being a cosmopolitan party, has votebanks of other language speakers as well and hence there were risks, the party felt. It is tough to evaluate its success or failure as it never became a major electoral plank,” an associate of Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
The regional identity narrative was put forth in a specific political context: to counter BJP nationalising the electoral space, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading from the front. The Congress did not pursue it through the campaign, but for a few statements and tweets by Mr. Siddaramaiah.
For the political establishment, it’s a case of once bitten, twice shy, says Arun Javgal, a Kannada activist from Banavasi Balaga. “The fact is that there is no big constituency for the Kannada vote yet in the State. Especially after the recent elections, there is a resistance from all political parties to take up the agenda aggressively,” he said. Mr. Javagal was critical of the JD(S) too. “The JD(S) has never been aggressive with the regional plank,” he said. Mr. Shastri observed the party was regional in its leadership, but not so in its agenda.