Hasan/Mandya/Mysore: Long before V. P. Singh became a messiah of social justice, Congress chief minister Devaraj Urs used the strategy in the 1970s to end the hegemony of the dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities in Karnataka politics.
Three decades after the Havanur Commission changed the lives of OBCs, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai navigated Karnataka’s complex caste cauldron to reconfigure the quota matrix.
In doing so, the BJP challenged Congress leader Siddaramaiah’s Ahinda strategy (a combination of minorities, backward classes and Dalits) by raising the Lingayat and Vokkaliga quota. The BJP considers the most backward among the Dalit groups as its votebank.
The party is banking on some key factors to get a majority number in the 10 May assembly polls — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma, former CM B.S. Yediyurappa’s Lingayat appeal, and Bommai’s quota rejig, in the hopes of breaking the H.D Deve Gowda-led JD(S)’s stronghold in south Karnataka.
“The caste categorisation done by the Bommai government will be a game changer in the Karnataka election. Many former governments tried (it), but they were hesitant to implement this. The Bommai government has done the next level of social justice by increasing reservation for communities,” BJP Karnataka in-charge and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told ThePrint.
In Bettadatunga, the ancestral village of former CM Devraj Urs, there are few takers for BJP’s Hindutva politics. But many see the BJP’s quota rejig as having the potential to upset the caste arithmetic of the JD(S) and Congress, albeit with a rider.
Raju Gowda, a Vokkaliga farmer from Bettadatunga, summed up the mood with his observations. “The BJP has done a good thing to raise reservation for Vokkaligas, Lingayats and other castes, but it should have implemented this decision earlier. Not many people know about the new reservation formula. We are traditionally supporters of Deve Gowda who has worked for farmers. We can’t betray him in his old age,” he told ThePrint.
Sitting next to Raju, Rajesh vouched for the good work done by the ruling party in the state. Rajesh hails from the Madiga community, which forms one of the largest groups among the Scheduled Castes in Karnataka.
“The BJP government has constructed houses for Dalits. We were given free ration during Covid, free vaccines which saved our lives. We want our children to get IT jobs in Bengaluru. The government’s decision to give more reservation for our community will make our life easier. Despite this being a Gowda area, we will support the BJP in the election,” he said.
This explains why BJP heavyweights, including Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J.P. Nadda targeted Congress veteran Siddaramaiah in rally after rally for not implementing caste reservation for the disadvantaged groups when he was the chief minister from 2013 to 2018.
The strategy of quota realignment, however, is not working in areas where the BJP has no big leaders.
An hour drive from Bettadatunga is Baj Mangala village, which falls in Varuna constituency, where Siddaramaiah is up against BJP Housing Minister V. Somanna.
“Who knows Somanna here? Siddaramaiah has done many things for Dalits. He knows everyone by name. There is no chance for the BJP…they might get votes but it will be very difficult to win,” Ramesha, a Dalit farmer, told ThePrint.
But in Kochanahalli village, Suresha, a Lingayat farmer, had a slightly different view of the poll battle. “Sommana is giving a good fight to Siddaramaiah, but sympathy is with Siddaramaiah who has announced that this is his last election.”
When Amit Shah visited Varuna on 2 May, the BJP heavyweight promised the voters that if they ensured Somanna’s victory, he would be given an important position in the government. Word spread in the constituency that Somanna may be given the chief minister’s post.
Despite his reluctance to fight from the constituency, Somanna’s selection was a well-thought decision of the BJP. The five-time MLA was district minister of Mysuru during the Covid pandemic and is well-versed with local politics.
With the presence of Suttur mutt, a prominent Lingayat mutt, in the region, the BJP is banking on the Lingayat leader to repeat the giant killing act of JD(S) candidate G.T. Gowda, who trounced Siddaramaiah in 2018 in Chamundeshwari.
Knowing well that the Congress and the JD(S) stopped its tracks five years ago in the Old Mysore region, the BJP has placed a huge premium through the Vokkaliga push in this opposition stronghold.
Modi has visited Mysore eight times since 2014. The BJP tried to build a narrative around Tipu Sultan but after a prominent swamy of a mutt showed displeasure, it backtracked from the Tipu narrative.
As the BJP does not have a tall leader in this region, it’s betting on two senior ministers: Somanna in Varuna and R. Ashoka, a Vokkaliga, in Kanakapura. Ashoka is taking on Congress state president D.K. Shivakumar in his home turf.
By fielding Somanna in Varuna and Chamarajanagar, the BJP is looking to consolidate Lingayat vote-bank in constituencies of Chamarajanagar and Mysore districts.
At Bekuppe circle located in Kanakapura taluka of Ramanagara district, Shivam Rappa runs a shop selling cigarettes and pan. “The fight is one-sided here. Shivakumar has done many projects here, from hospital to school…plus, he is available during emergencies. He alone helps here. So, there is no chance of Ashoka’s win,” the Lingayat shopkeeper said.
The faith is reposed by a group of women, all labourers in rice mills, who were waiting on Kanakapura main road to board buses.
“Our whole income is spent on meeting daily needs of ration…gas cylinders are so costly that we cannot save a single penny. Under the BJP government, inflation has broken all records. We are hopeful that Shivkumar Saheb government will make our life easier,” Jayaamma, a Vokkaliga, said.
A few kilometres away from main Kanakapura, a group of farmers including Ramanna was resting at a tea shop to escape the summer heat. He was keenly watching a man wearing saffron clothes busy in election campaigning.
“Shivakumar has brought everything from hospital to school. The BJP government took away a medical college sanctioned here to punish voters who remained loyal to him. Why will the people leave Shivakumar for Ashoka who only campaigned twice here?” Ramanna asked.
Revenue minister R. Ashoka, who is also contesting from Padmanabhanagar, has an uphill task as the BJP’s average vote share is not more than 4 per cent in this Congress bastion.
The minister put up a brave front when asked about his chances of winning in Kanakapura. “The high command has sent me with a strategy of building the party and winning the election. We are moving in this direction to defeat him,” Ashoka told ThePrint.
Overseeing Shivakumar’s campaign is his wife Usha and son Aakash, while senior BJP leader Ashwath Narayan is handling Ashoka’s campaign.
Aswasth Narayan, too, conceded to ThePrint that Kanakapura is a difficult constituency as “Shivakumar’s people are doing everything to intimidate BJP workers, but we are moving with energy to challenge his empire”.
Factors that BJP can’t ignore
In southern Karnataka, the BJP is anxiously looking at the electoral performance of JD(S). On its part, the ruling party has done caste balancing and its renewed Vokkaliga push as well to weaken the stronghold of Deve Gowda.
Before the announcement of election when he visited Mandya, Amit Shah alleged Kumaraswamy was the most corrupt leader. Earlier this week, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath began his campaign from Mandya, where Adichunchanagiri Mutt is located. The mutt is said to have close links with Gorakhnath Mutt in Uttar Pradesh whose head is none other than the UP CM himself.
With 61 seats altogether, southern Karnataka has assumed importance for the BJP given that it is not only the turf of JD(S) but it is home to the areas which are strongholds of Congress heavyweights Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar.
The JD(S) has kept its influence intact in this region despite its internal problems and family disputes. The party won 58 seats in 2004, 30 in 2008, 40 in 2013, and 37 in 2018.
Though there are not many takers for Hindutva politics in southern Karnataka, the BJP is optimistic about its electoral prospects as a recent survey showed that government schemes such as Ujjwala, Kisan Samman Nidhi and PM Awas Yojana as well as free Covid vaccine were well-received by the people.
In Hassan district where Deve Gowda started his political career, the nonagenarian is campaigning aggressively unlike the previous elections. In 2018, the JD(S) won six seats, except Hassan, in the district. The JD(S) patriarch has made an emotional pitch to the voters for showing the door to sitting BJP MLA Preetham Gowda at Hassan.
T.S. Murthy, who runs a bicycle shop in Hassan, said that Preetham helped the people during the pandemic as he organised vaccination camps and stood with the villagers.
“He constructed homes by organising camps to apply under the Awas Yojana. Despite Deve Gowda being the biggest leader of this region, we want to explore the BJP further to bring change,” he said.
A senior functionary of the central BJP told ThePrint that the party had heavily invested in Old Mysore.
“We are expecting a good show in our traditional strongholds of coastal and Malnad region, north Karnataka…but our focus is on Old Mysore region. We have invested a lot of resources in Old Mysore. Like we broke away a large portion of Dalit votes from Mayawati in UP, we are making efforts to wean away Vokkaligas from the JD(S) and break the consolidation of Dalits in favour of the Congress. We are expecting to double our seats in this region to get majority,” the BJP functionary told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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