Party is planning an organised election campaign in Karnataka in the run-up to the 2023 Assembly polls.
New Delhi: After the recent victories in four state elections, the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka is upbeat and planning for a similar grassroots and organised election campaign in Karnataka in the run-up to the 2023 state Assembly polls. Many party functionaries have indicated to The Sunday Guardian that the saffron party which was facing stiff challenge from the opposition is now confident that it can easily win the polls if it focuses on an organized campaign and highlights the issues of nationalism and development in the next nine months.
One senior Karnataka BJP leader said, “There was a lot of talk about anti-incumbency and caste alliance done by the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, but the BJP returned with a two-thirds majority. Even in Uttarakhand, people were saying that anti-incumbency is against the BJP, but we won the state again by two-thirds majority. The same is the case of Goa and Manipur, the common people have chosen the BJP and the positive agenda put up by our leader Narendra Modi. In a recent meeting after the results where we felicitated those who worked in Uttar Pradesh and other four states, this thing was widely discussed. The state unit has decided to focus the election campaign on similar lines.”
After the verdict of the five state elections, the state unit of the BJP felicitated at the state headquarters party leaders and workers who took an active part in the election campaign in these states. The leaders included Uttarakhand party in-charge Pralhad Joshi, and Union minister of state for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shobha Karandlaje, who was active in Uttar Pradesh. All the party leaders spoke on similar lines that the party will take lessons and motivation from the campaign of Uttar Pradesh and repeat the performance in Karnataka during the upcoming 2023 Assembly elections.
Talking to The Sunday Guardian, Bangalore-based political analyst Devdas Arun said, “The success of the BJP in four states had strengthened the party leadership; now the state leaders like former chief minister Yediyurappa will not be able to put pressure on the party to accommodate his loyalists in the cabinet. The party leadership will now design the campaign freely after the Uttar Pradesh success as like Karnataka, UP was also considered a difficult election to win for the saffron party. Moreover, the successive electoral defeats of the Congress in other states have given the BJP a psychological advantage over it in Karnataka also; it was evident from the statements made by the CM and other state BJP leaders.”
In recent times, the politics of Karnataka has increasingly become bi-polar with the BJP and the Congress emerging as two poles, while the electoral base of the Janata Dal Secular, JD (S), once a major regional party of the state, has eroded. The Congress had always been a key challenger to the ruling BJP in the state. Karnataka is perhaps the only state now where the BJP has not been able to surpass the Congress’ vote share. In the 2018 Assembly election, despite the BJP emerging as the single largest party with 104 seats in the legislative Assembly of 224 members, the Congress got 1.8% more votes than the saffron party. In the 2018 Assembly election, the BJP won 104 seats, the Congress got 80 seats, while the Janata Dal (Secular) led by H.D. Kumaraswamy won 37 seats.