When the BJP won the first of eight Assembly seats in Dakshina Kannada on Tuesday, the party tweeted: “BJP’s first victory comes in the form of Umanath Kotiyan’s win in Moodbidri, Dakshina Kannada. Congratulations. Here our karyakarta [worker] Prashanth Poojary was hacked to death by fundamentalists. We dedicate our victory to his memory.”
The party’s projection of itself as a protector of Hindutva and of the Congress as the oppressor appears to have paid off, with the party underlining the binary with each victory.
The BJP opened its account in Moodbidri constituency, a Congress citadel, for the first time, defeating four-time Congress MLA K. Abhayachandra Jain. The party had come second in the constituency in 2008 and 2013.
This time, the BJP won 16 of 19 Assembly segments in the districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada, ensuring a saffron coastal belt. Of the eight seats in Dakshina Kannada, five in Udupi and six in Uttara Kannada, the Congress won 13 in 2013, while the BJP got three.
Revenge metaphor
The coastal belt has been the hotbed of communal tensions and politics for several months leading up to the elections.
When the Congress heavyweight, six-time MLA and Minister for Forests, Environment and Ecology B. Ramanath Rai, lost from Bantwal, the BJP tweeted: “We win massively in Bantwal, where young RSS worker Sharat Madiwala was brutally killed by Islamic fanatics. Congress minister Ramanath Rai had given tacit support to these anti-social elements. People have now spoken. We dedicate Rajesh Naik’s win to the memory of Sharat.”
The coastal districts also saw multiple campaigns by the BJP’s star campaigners — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Mr. Adityanath toured the belt thrice. Mr. Shah did the circuit twice. Leaders of all the maths spoke of the political killings and trained their guns against the Congress.
