The Congress on Saturday emerged victorious in the 224-member Karnataka ssembly polls held on May 10, by winning 135 seats, the Election Commission of India said. According to EC website, the BJP bagged 65 and JD(S) – 19 seats.
Two independent candidates also won in the election. Apart from it, Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha and Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha won one seat each. Meanwhile, the results of Jayanagar constituency in Bengaluru are still pending after the Election Commission ordered recounting of postal ballots where Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy has a slender lead over BJP’s C K Ramamurthy.
In the outgoing Assembly, the ruling BJP has 116 MLAs, followed by the Congress at 69, JD(S) 29, BSP one, independents two, speaker one and vacant six (following deaths and resignations to join other parties ahead of the polls).
Here are ten takeaways from the election result:
1) Opposition Party: Last year at this time, the Congress was only in control in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It was neck-and-neck in the opposition standings with the Aam Aadmi Party, which is currently in power in two states. However, thanks to a strong victory in Himachal Pradesh last year and an outstanding triumph in Karnataka today, the Congress will now govern in four states. The figures show that, despite losing electoral relevance in recent years, the Congress remains the only national party capable of opposing the BJP, as per a report by Times of India.
2) Third Front Possibility: The results will further solidify Congress’s status as the “primus inter pares” (first among equals) opposition party. This means that if the opposition parties decide to establish a united front with Congress, the grand old party will have a stronger bargaining chip, the report further explains.
3) United Front: While the Rajasthan Congress has been beset by a squabble between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, Karnataka has not witnessed a similar narrative. DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, two Karnataka Congress stalwarts, put their differences aside and presented a single front, ABP News reported.
4) Will Results Have a Bearing on 2024? As per a report by Moneycontrol, it is not necessary that Karnataka results will have a bearing on the upcoming highly-anticipated polls. The BJP won the Karnataka state elections in 2008, and then went on to win MP and Chhattisgarh while losing Rajasthan and Mizoram later that year.
In 2013, the Congress won Karnataka, but it did not benefit the party because it lost three state elections later that year in MP, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan to the BJP, while keeping Mizoram, the report explains.
The BJP was the single largest party in Karnataka in 2018, but lost to the Congress in the three North Indian states later that year, while the NDA defeated the INC in Mizoram.
Except for Nagaland, the party that won the state elections also won the national elections in the 2008-09 Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections. The BJP’s victory in Karnataka did not aid the party nationwide in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, which were won by the UPA.
Almost the same tendency was noticed in the 2013-14 pair of polls. The BJP won the majority of these state elections in the 2014 general election. Because of a schism in the BJP, the Congress might easily win Karnataka, but it lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
A divided verdict was observed in the 2018-19 pair of polls. Despite losing MP, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, the BJP swept these states in the Lok Sabha elections barely four months later. In Karnataka, the Congress performed admirably in 2018, preventing the BJP from gaining a majority and creating a government, but none of this helped in the Lok Sabha elections a year later.
5) But Why did BJP lose? The government of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has been dogged by allegations of corruption and bribery, as per ABP News. The Congress based its campaign on charges that the state’s ruling BJP demanded a 40% commission from builders, contractors, and others. Writing for the Indian Express, BJP Karnataka spokesperson said there were two reasons why the party lost Karnataka,” the first is lacklustre governance. Despite the discounting factors of Covid and economic constraints, the incumbent BJP government had nothing great to showcase in terms of development, infrastructure or welfare. Fourteen ministers of the government lost the election. It says something. The last-minute tweaking of reservation also did not help. The second is the muck of corruption. The disputable allegation of “40 per cent commission” stuck very strongly and the Madal Virupakshappa episode added to it. The experiences of the common people in dealing with government offices reinforced the feeling of dismay.”
With inputs from PTI
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