Former Karnataka Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda’s not-so-veiled critique of the Bharatiya Janata Party high command for aligning with the Janata Dal (Secular) might hit a few nerves. He made three broad points in an interview to ThePrint on Saturday.
First, no state leaders were consulted, to the best of his knowledge. A minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet for over seven years (2014-2021), Gowda should know better. Unless, of course, he was used to being consulted about his ministries’ decisions. In today’s BJP, consultations are a sign of weak leadership, which is definitely not the case.
Second, the JD(S)’s ‘little monopoly’ is in the Old Mysuru region where the BJP has made impressive strides in terms of vote shares—from 4-5 per cent in the past polls to 17 per cent in the last assembly election. So, why sacrifice these gains?
Third, the JD(S) will call the shots in the Old Mysuru region where BJP cadres have worked so hard for several years. Why let them down? Gowda didn’t ask the question in as many words. I have made it simpler.
There is another point he could have made but didn’t: Why are you giving fresh oxygen to Gowda’s party when it’s on a ventilator?
These are all valid questions the BJP high command won’t answer. Many Karnataka BJP leaders are wondering why their central leadership is so indecisive and confused. They have been unable to choose the Legislature Party leader for five months. State party president Nalin Kateel’s term ended in August 2022 but they haven’t found a replacement yet.
The answer to the above question may lie in my colleague Amogh Rohmetra’s analysis of the last assembly election results and extrapolation of that data in Lok Sabha segments.
What it tells us is that if the assembly election trend continues, the BJP’s Lok Sabha tally in Karnataka will come down to eight in 2024—from 25 in 2019. That is if the party contests alone. In an alliance with the JD(S), the two could win 18 out of 28 seats in Karnataka.
But these are extrapolated figures. The presumption here is that the Kannadigas would vote for the same parties in both assembly and Lok Sabha elections. We know how faulty that presumption is. People in most states are known to vote for Modi in parliamentary elections even if they don’t in assembly polls.
So, why is the BJP feeling so insecure? The party might have lost power in Karnataka but maintained its 2018 vote share— 36 per cent. It went up to 51 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Why is the BJP high command unsure that the same trend won’t follow in 2024? Why do they give the impression of being so scared of the Congress in Karnataka that they feel safer in former Prime Minister Deve Gowda’s company?
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Courting AIADMK and Jagan Mohan
The fact is that the BJP’s central leadership is equally unsure about their strategy in other states. They rebuffed Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) overtures for an alliance, even ignoring JanaSena Party leader Pawan Kalyan’s pressure, because they didn’t want to antagonise Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, a reliable ally. The BJP can count on his continuing loyalty because he is facing many cases involving Central agencies. This, however, means zero seats for the BJP in Andhra. The party looked reconciled to that.
But suddenly, Union Home Minister Amit Shah invited arrested TDP leader and Chandrababu Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh, to his New Delhi residence to enquire about his father and the case. It was not a usual behind-the-scenes political parley. Shah wanted to send a message. News of the meeting was broken by Andhra Pradesh BJP chief Daggubati Purandeswari. No BJP leader denied Lokesh’s claim about Shah telling him that Naidu’s arrest was to “frame the BJP”.
What changed suddenly? The BJP is obviously doing a re-think about its Andhra strategy. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it aligned with the TDP and the JanaSena and ended up with two seats. Without an alliance in 2019, it was reduced to zero with less than one per cent vote share.
So, the choice is to negotiate with a beleaguered Naidu, who may get some sympathy votes, revive the 2014 formula and try to expand the BJP’s footprints in Andhra Pradesh. But the BJP doesn’t want to abandon Reddy. Never sail on two boats, as they say.
In Telangana, the BJP is looking reconciled to playing a spoiler for the Congress, which seems to have bounced back after ceding the principal opposition’s space to the BJP. Modi’s and other BJP leaders’ attacks on SChief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao are no longer seen in political circles as an attempt to pitch the BJP as a challenger to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). Because, if the BJP wanted that, it wouldn’t remove its state unit chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar whose tenure of a little over three years saw the BJP becoming a formidable force in Telangana.
His replacement, G Kishan Reddy, has shown little of his predecessor’s firepower. Therefore, BJP leaders’ attacks on the BRS, especially after the party’s loss in Karnataka, are now being increasingly seen as an attempt to split anti-incumbency votes to deny power to the Congress—and help KCR in the process. Later, there is always the likelihood of a formal or informal understanding with the BRS in the Lok Sabha election. From being a strong challenger of the BRS, the BJP is now focusing on putting down the Congress’ challenge to KCR.
In Tamil Nadu, when the BJP high command refused to remove K Annamalai as state unit chief under the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK) pressure, it appeared that the party was preparing to go the whole hog. As it is, the BJP high command seems to be waiting for the AIADMK to relent and take the BJP under its fold some time ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Otherwise, just think of how the BJP would react if one of its political adversaries demanded the release of Muslim prisoners, including those convicted in the 1998 Coimbatore bombings that were said to be targeted at the party’s co-founder LK Advani. The AIADMK did exactly that last week. Annamalai’s response was rather muted.
Other BJP leaders chose to look the other way. Also, if the BJP intended to pursue an independent course, it would immediately align with expelled AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam, VK Sasikala and AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran to try to woo the Thevar community in southern districts. The BJP isn’t doing any of that because it’s still courting the AIADMK.
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Ashwamedh gone missing
It’s not just southern states where the BJP high command’s one-step-forward-two-steps-back politics shows a lack of confidence. It made rapid strides in West Bengal and Odisha in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections but holds no steam in the states anymore. Even in Maharashtra, where it once looked in the driver’s seat with a popular leader like current Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis as its face, the BJP looks helpless.
CM Eknath Shinde and his deputy Ajit Pawar consolidated their positions, with the former emerging as the Maratha leader the BJP could ill-afford to replace if the alliance returned to power.
These developments in one state after another beg the question: Why is a party that won 224 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 with over 50 per cent vote share looking so defensive? Where has the Ashwamedh, which was prancing around with gay abandon in hitherto unchartered territories, gone missing?
The fact is that the BJP leadership is making the 2024 challenge look bigger and tougher than it is. There is no reason yet to suspect that the party would suffer major reverses on those 224 seats. The party must not lose its self-esteem—and faith in Modi—so much to think that it can’t win another 48 seats on its own for a majority in the Lok Sabha. When one hears Modi, Shah and other leaders, they seem to be oozing with confidence. But when one looks at their strategy in states, it gives a different impression altogether.
DK Singh is ThePrint’s Political Editor. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)