Karnataka Poll: EC sets May 10 date for BJP to beat 40-year trend
Photo credit Twitter Amit Shah
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, March 29: An incumbent government was voted back to power almost four decades ago in Karnataka, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be keeping an eye on the electoral history of the state in the run up to the May 10 single phase election. Congress may gauge the mood of the people on May 13 on party’s drumming up ‘democracy is under threat’ war cry and the political efficacy of the party marching on warpath over the disqualification of its former chief Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai will be seeking re-election on the development poll plank and the slogan of the double-engine government of the BJP. The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday announced the election schedule for Karnataka to automatically bring the model code of conduct in force.
But by the time the EC announced the poll schedule, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already laid foundation stones for several projects and also inaugurated those which had been completed. Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, who through his political Sherpa and the Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is micro-managing the poll preparations of the party, has already visited the state a number of times and among others he has sought to get the house in order for the elections.
The BJP on its own has won a maximum of 110 Assembly seats in Karnataka in the 2008 Assembly elections. That remains the peak for the saffron outfit in the state. Karnataka has a total of 224 Assembly seats. The BJP could only break the past peak if the saffron outfit gains votes from the influential Vokkaliga in South Karnataka, notes state-based political observers.
Also, the BJP had run its election campaign in Himachal Pradesh on the slogan of ‘riwaz badalna hai (trend has to change)’. But the saffron outfit was frustrated after the people in the hilly state gave their votes to the tradition to vote out the incumbent government.
The BJP claims to have made inroads in the Old Mysuru region with the independent Lok Sabha MP Sumanlatha, who is of Telugu origin but enjoys popularity because of her late husband Ambareesh, who was a Vokkaliga, coming in support of the saffron outfit. “The BJP can retain power in Karnataka only if the party wins substantial number of seats in the Old Mysuru region,” said a senior BJP functionary. Karnataka has never re-elected an incumbent government since 1983.
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