The results of the recently held elections to the 28 seats of the Lok Sabha in Karnataka are crucial to the future of the Congress-Janata Dal(Secular) coalition government, given the nature of the understanding between the two parties, drawn with the important aim of unitedly challenging the domination of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been winning a higher number of seats with every passing election.
That the understanding between the two coalition partners was not well grounded leading to the two parties fighting against each other much to the benefit of the BJP, is now under discussion at various levels and the results on May 23 is expected to show it up although some sections of the leaders in the Congress and the JD(S) hope that the differences will not be reflected in the results. This may come true in the case of the constituencies in the north Karnataka regions, but then the JD(S) has a poor presence in such places and the transfer of such votes in favour of the Congress candidates may not be worthy of any consideration.
It is widely believed that the grass-roots level workers of the two parties primarily worked against each other in the old Mysore region, particularly in the constituencies of Mysuru, Mandya, Tumakuru, and Hassan. While the Congress candidate for Mysuru, C.H. Vijayashankar, is a staunch supporter of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and also belongs to the Kuruba community, the JD(S) candidates at Tumakuru, Mandya, and Hassan were all members of the Deve Gowda family — the former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, and his grandchildren Nikhil K. and Prajwal Revanna. Credit should go to H.D. Revanna, who called on most of the Congress leaders and prevailed upon them to work for the JD(S) candidate, who incidentally is his son, and was given the ticket for the Hassan seat by Mr. Deve Gowda, who has successfully contested in several elections in the past. Incidentally, Mr. Deve Gowda himself is believed to have faced the wrath of some Congress leaders in the district, who reportedly worked to the benefit of BJP candidate.
A senior JD(S) leader, G.T. Deve Gowda, who is also a Minister in the Kumaraswamy government and who was instrumental in the defeat of Mr. Siddaramaiah in the Legislative Assembly elections, has stated that the supporters of the JD(S) cast their votes in favour of the BJP and not the Congress candidate. In Mandya, many of the local Congress leaders have been identified in the camp of the Independent candidate, Sumalatha. Such differences, which were voiced during the run-up to the elections, are now coming out in the open and more of it will be known in the days after the election results are announced.
It is a well known fact that the differences between the Congress and the JD(S) in some of the old Mysore constituencies is primarily due to the political differences between Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Deve Gowda, and the elections have only resulted in an escalation of this animosity, and whatever be the results, this is scheduled to further aggravate the situation. Should the Congress-JD(S) combine win a higher number of seats, then it is obvious that Mr. Siddaramaiah will stake claim for a re-negotiation of the agreement between the two parties by virtue of which the Congress will seek to play a more dominant role. In the event the two parties failing to win a good chunk of seats, then it is obvious that the arrangement between the two parties will be pushed to the brink of a collapse.
(The writer is Senior Fellow, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy)