While politics in Karnataka has largely remained triangular, several political parties, the most prominent among them in recent times being the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), are trying to gain a toehold. In a State where the vote share to seat share conversion is already an uphill task for the Congress, the party fears that most of the smaller parties will splinter its votes. Relatively, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) seem less worried about the smaller parties.
Though the AAP has failed to make any impact in the State (the party contested 28 seats and managed to secure only 0.55% votes in 2018), fresh from the Punjab victory and a good show in Gujarat, this it time has 213 candidates in fray.
“Being branded an urban party we were expected to do well in Bengaluru, but the AAP has found more resonance in pockets of north Karnataka’s hinterland, where there is a dearth for alternatives, and [the region] faces serious governance deficit,” Pruthvi Reddy, Karnataka convenor for the AAP said.
With the AAP having eaten into the vote share of the Congress in Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat, it was expected to follow a similar pattern in Karnataka, too. However, the party hopes to become the third wheel in north Karnataka, once occupied but gradually lost by the JDS. “Our surveys suggest we have a good chance in several constituencies, including Rona, Sagar, Bidar South, and Bagepalli,” an AAP leader. However, the party suffered a few setbacks in the run-up to the elections, and suffers from the lack of a “recognisable face” in the State.
Reddy’s new party
The new party on the block in the upcoming election is the Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha, founded by mining baron and former BJP Minister G. Janardhan Reddy. It has put up candidates in 49 constituencies, predominantly in the Kalyana Karnataka region, a traditional stronghold of Congress. Mr. Reddy, who played a key role in the BJP sweeping the region in 2008, has claimed he will mop up both BJP and Congress votes. But a senior Congress leader claimed that he was no more than “BJP’s Trojan horse.” With his politically more popular friend B. Sriramulu and his two MLA brothers remaining in BJP, Mr. Janardhan Reddy’s influence will be limited, politicians from the region predict.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was in an alliance with the JDS in 2018, had won a lone seat from Kollegal. But its candidate, N. Mahesh, later switched to BJP. This time, the BSP has decided to go alone and is contesting in 137 seats. “Our alliance with the JDS helped them more than us,” a prominent leader of the party said.
Meanwhile, Karnataka Rashtra Samithi, a new party floated by Ravi Krishna Reddy, whose earlier forays into electoral politics as an independent candidate failed repeatedly, has put up candidates in 200 constituencies. The party is pitching an anti-corruption plank.
The Muslim vote
With the BJP running a campaign targeting Muslims, an important question coming into play is how parties like the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlees-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) will fare. The AIMIM tried hard to secure an alliance with the JDS but failed, and has ended up contesting only two seats. However, the Congress fears that the AIMIM, with limited influence in pockets of north Karnataka, may work for the JDS in the coming elections.
Meanwhile, the SDPI, coming on the back of a Popular Front of India (PFI) ban and winning more than 300 seats in the 2020 Gram Panchayat elections, is contesting in 16 constituencies. In the previous Assembly polls, it contested in three constituencies, lost the deposit in two, but ended up putting up a fight in the Narasimharaja constituency in Mysuru against Congress’s Tanveer Sait. This time around, the SDPI and the BSP have an informal tie-up, as part of which the BSP is not contesting in Narasimharaja and, as a return of favour, the SDPI, despite having six councillors, won’t contest in Chamarajanagar. The Congress is jittery about how this will pan out.
The Left parties
The Left parties — the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the Communist Party of India (CPI), and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) — are contesting in a total of 24 constituencies with no alliance between them. Of them, the CPI(M) is hopeful of a victory in its one time pocketburough of Bagepalli, where it has fielded a popular doctor who served the community during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi, which has failed to win a seat since 2013, is contesting four seats in Belagavi, where it may have impact. In the 2021 Parliamentary by-polls, the party’s candidate stood third, polling 1.24 Lakh votes.
Hope for vote for stability
Given that the State has had only one stable government completing a full term since 2004 — between 2013-18 led by Congress’s Siddaramaiah — the party hopes that people will vote for “stability”. “With Congress being the frontrunner, we hope the electorate is not swayed by smaller parties, who stand no chance at governance,” senior Congress leader Krishan Byre Gowda said.
