On the face of it, on the chessboard called Karnataka politics, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress are the main contestants in assembly elections due in May, with BJP defending its four-year-old government now headed by Basavaraj Bommai. But scratch the surface, and you will find one of India's worst-kept electoral secrets, that is, the see-saw struggle for upward social mobility between two communities: the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas.
That, of course, is given for seasoned Karnataka watchers. But proof came in abundance last week, if proof was needed, of how both the leading political parties struggle to make or break vote banks out of competing communities, which are among the loudest and the most ambitious in India.
In Karnataka's strange melange of caste and community dynamics, the seemingly authoritarian stronghold of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Hindutva factor championed by the BJP, the organisational chutzpah of home minister Amit Shah - all fall flat.
The Congress, which swears by secularism and modern values among its counted virtues, has to junk a lot of that as it also counts voter heads by community. What is common to both parties this season is that they both have to contend with leadership struggles within their own parties. Chief ministerial ambitions are barely hidden. The smell of rebellion rents the otherwise serene air of Bengaluru.
The X Factor: the Lingayats
Both individual ambitions and community dynamics were seen loud and clear last week with four Lingayat leaders in the news, three of them former or sitting chief ministers (BS Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar and Basavaraj Bommai) and one a former Deputy CM (Laxman Savadi). Savadi and Shettar have turned rebels to jump ship from BJP to contest for Congress even though Yediyurappa was batting for Shettar as late as last week. Yeddy's son is already a BJP candidate weeks after Modi himself acknowledged on stage the corruption-charge-tainted Yeddy as a titan.
If you are confused, it should not be surprising.
The Lingayats have a chequered history. Sometimes they are seen as followers of a separate minority religion (Lingayatism) but they worship Shiva which makes them Hindu. But then they also question the old-world Brahmin-led caste system.
Members of this influential cult have their origins in various castes and communities. All we need to know heading into an election is that in the modern world, they are an educated, politically conscious, ambitious lot.
The BJP has by and large cast its lot with the Lingayats whose personal ambitions often tower over any ideology, party or leader. Modi's famous strongman image melts south of Dharwar. The BJP's hold over the only southern state where it is in power is deeply in question this season, because it gets tricky in Karnataka, when wooing one community invariably angers others.
What BJP & Congress are Banking on
The Congress, understandably, is swimming with the Vokkaligas this season. Its Karnataka president DK Shivakumar, with an alternative image as a moneybag, is one. Although the Janata Dal (Secular) led by fellow Vokkaliga and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda carries strong clout in the Mandya belt not far from India's Silicon Valley, the statewide presence of Congress would make the predominantly farmer-oriented Vokkaligas lean toward the Grand Old Party. Options are open for the JD(S) to play kingmaker in a three-way hung assembly but indications are that its relationship with the BJP is more than strained this season.
Congress, leaving nothing to chance, has wooed in Savadi and is trying to paint itself as acceptable to both Lingayats and Vokkkaligas. Savadi, clearly realising that he would be an also-ran in a Lingayat-heavy BJP, has jumped ship in an evidently opportunistic move.
The BJP is trying to mix large-scale development showcasing with its time-tested Hindutva plank but religious identities run stronger in the coastal part of Karnataka than elsewhere.
It has tried innuendo related to hijab-wearing in educational institutions, support for controversial ruler Tipu Sultan and the abolition of a quota for Muslims to build up Hindu support, but the appeal is not as strong for the party as for, say, the Ayodhya temple in UP.
Modi's brigade would thus hope that his flashy binge of flagging fancy trains and opening small-town airports would do the trick.
Congress is betting on Vokkaliga support and backing from minority Muslims and Dalits (its national president Mallikarjun Kharge is a Dalit from Karnataka) and then buttresses it with expectations of an anti-incumbency wave. Last but not least, BJP has been rocked by corruption scandals in Karnataka, which doesn't go with its image as a relatively clean party in the north and west of India.
But the Congress is not really a united house and its hoped-for victory is no cakewalk. Its former chief minister Siddaramaiah is showing his muscles as someone who wants to return to that seat and displays his Kuruba (other backward caste - OBC) identity to boot.
BJP Is Up Against the Odds
One thing stands out in the crisscross patterns of Karnataka's politics of outsized ambitions: This is no state for any simplistic politics based on ideology or identity. A lot depends on the hard-as-nuts bargaining for the spoils of power, be they of election tickets, titles, outlays or ministries. Modi and Shah are not really calling the shots.
Amit Shah stepped on Vokkaliga farmers' toes when he spoke of Gujarat-born Amul helping Karntataka's dairy movement, sparking a turf war with homegrown cooperative brand Nandini. It doesn't help that BJP is dogged by corruption scandals. The recovery of around Rs 6 crore in cash from the house of arrested BJP MLA Madal Virupakshappa's son, Prashanth, was a visible shock. A string of accusations involving its ministers as being part of a "PayTm" govt who took payoffs for everything from export approvals to school administration has been well documented.
With Modi's oratorial appeal, personality cult, or clean image pitch not cutting much ice in the state, the BJP is up against the odds.
A lot would depend on whether Lingayat backing and a hard sell of glamorous growth projects make up for the image loss.
More important, any loss for the BJP would invite back the old tag that it is a largely north-dominated party. With Modi running for a third term in national elections due next year, that would be a heavy cross to bear for the party that portrays itself as a flag-bearer of a civilisational renaissance.
(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator who has worked for Reuters, Economic Times, Business Standard, and Hindustan Times. He can be reached on Twitter @madversity. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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