The mood in the Bharatiya Janata Party camp on the eve of results of the Assembly elections is a stark contrast to what it was in 2008, when spirits were upbeat. Quietness prevails in the party camp.
The exit polls, which have shown that the party is nowhere near to forming the government, have dampened the spirits of the party cadre.
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The party leaders have been getting constant calls from anxious workers to know why the exit polls and the pre-poll surveys have predicted a gloomy picture for the party. Though they are expecting the leaders to assure them that the exit polls are wrong, none of the top leaders is trying to appease them.
Most of the senior leaders appear to have already come to the conclusion that they will not get the required numbers to form the government.
Of course, even before the polls, the key leaders were not hopeful of becoming the single-largest party though they made tall claims in public.
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Hope of alliance
In fact, they were trying to get only a substantial number of seats — in the range of 70 to 80 – so that they could forge an alliance to form the government. But even that possibility is appearing to be bleak for the party going by the exit polls.
Perhaps it is in this context that none of the Central leaders of the party are scheduled to visit the State on Wednesday though a large number of them had camped in Karnataka during the run-up to the polls to campaign for the party.
However, it does not mean that curiosity about the results is low in the BJP as the party wants to know its real strength in the wake of the three-way split following the quitting of its former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and the former Minister B. Sriramulu.
Several grassroots-level leaders are still hoping for a fractured verdict where the BJP can pull strings by forging an alliance.
Three-way split
But none of the key-leaders is endorsing this view as they feel that the three-way split has severely affected the party’s performance.