LS POLLS

Analysis | Congress calculations go wrong in Karnataka. Why & how?

Bengaluru: In a major setback to the ruling Congress in Karnataka, the party failed to reach its target of securing a double-digit tally in the Lok Sabha elections and won just nine of the total 28 parliamentary seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 17 of the 25 seats and its ally the Janata Dal (Secular) bagged two of the three constituencies it contested.

The sole consolation for the Congress party, which had set a target of winning 20 seats, was improving its performance from getting just one Lok Sabha seat (Bengaluru Rural) in the 2019 parliamentary polls. The lone Congress seat had been won by Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar's brother DK Suresh, who had won in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress lost the seat this time to noted cardiologist Dr CN Manjunath, son-in-law of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, who made his debut into electoral politics on a BJP ticket and became a giant killer as both Shivakumar and Suresh known as the 'DK brothers' had made Bengaluru Rural an impregnable fort.

The winning tally of 17, nine, two is a repeat of the performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Since 2004, the Congress party in Karnataka, which used to send a major chunk of MPs earlier, has been unsuccessful in improving its performance. While it won eight seats in 2004, the party won six in 2009, nine in 2014 and one in 2019 with the BJP bagging the majority and the JD(S) winning between two and three.

Another setback was to Deve Gowda. Hassan, which was his home turf for five decades, slipped into the Congress' hands. The Lok Sabha seat had been drawing international attention after Gowda's grandson and JD(S) candidate, now suspended from the party, Prajwal Revanna was accused of sexual assaults by several women. Gowda had handed over Hassan constituency to Prajwal in 2019 as he looked upon him as his political heir. The Congress wrested the seat from Prajwal with Shreyas Patel Gowda, grandson of Deve Gowda's political bete noire late H Puttaswamy Gowda.

The nine seats won by the Congress are Kalaburagi, contested by AICC President Mallikarjun M Kharge's son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani; Chikkodi (Priyanka Jarkiholi, daughter of minister Satish L Jarkiholi); Chamarajanagar (Sunil Bose, son of minister H C Mahadevappa); Raichur (G Kumar Naik, retired bureaucrat); Koppal (K Rajashekar Basavaraj Hitnal); Bidar (Sagar Khandre, son of minister Eshwar Khandre); Ballari (E Tukaram, sitting MLA); Davanagere (Prabha Mallikarjun, wife of minister S Mallikarjun); and Hassan (Shreyas Patel Gowda).

The poor performance by the Congress has come as a shocker to the party leaders, who were expecting to win 20 seats as the outfit had staged a comeback in the 2023 Assembly polls by winning 135 of the total 224 seats. The party was banking on the five guarantees it had announced during the Assembly polls of which three were women-centric and had become a game-changer for the party to return to power after a decade with an absolute majority.

The Congress was also hoping that the dissidence in the BJP would help as the latter changed candidates in 15 constituencies. Another political strategy was giving 13 tickets to the kin of party leaders, including the children of nine ministers. Of the nine ministers' children only three sailed to victory.

The BJP candidates depended solely on the `Modi factor'. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held several road shows and rallies in the state which seemed to have worked.
Reacting to the poll results, former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who won from Mandya with a huge margin of 2.87 lakh, said: "The BJP-JD(S) alliance could have won 20 to 22 seats but for the overconfidence by some leaders.''

DK loses sheen?
The single-digit victory is certainly going to have some political repercussions. According to Congress sources, the bargaining power of Shivakumar, who was eyeing the Chief Minister's seat post the general elections will weaken. There is likely to be a change of guard at the state unit with Shivakumar, who has been at the helm since 2020, being replaced.

Also, the defeat of the Congress candidate in the Mysuru-Kodagu Lok Sabha seat is an embarrassment to Siddaramaiah as it is his home turf. The Chief Minister spent most of his campaigning time in Mysuru and adjoining Chamarajanagar to ensure the party candidates' victory