PM Modi will hit the campaign trail in Karnataka on 1 May with a new slogan to attack the Congress government and CM Siddaramaiah.
Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to use a new slogan – ‘2+1’ – on the campaign trail in Karnataka as he seeks to corner the Congress on dynasty politics.
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah is contesting the 12 May election from two seats, Chamundeshwari in Mysuru and Badami in the north of the state, with his son Yathindra set to make his electoral debut from Varuna, the seat his father now represents from the Mysuru region.
Apart from Siddaramaiah, there are four father-children duos in the Congress list of candidates, including former union minister K.H. Muniyappa and his daughter.
On his second trip to the state in two months, Modi is likely to address around 15 rallies, starting from Chamrajnagar on 1 May. With ‘2+1’, the BJP expects to paint the Congress as a party of dynasts.
The BJP general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Muralidhar Rao, told ThePrint that the BJP would go to the people to “expose” Siddaramaiah’s ‘2+1’ politics: “His party and his government are all about the interests of some families, not about people.”
A senior BJP functionary and key party strategist told ThePrint in Bengaluru that the ‘2+1 strategy’ was the reason why chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa’s son Vijayendra was denied a party ticket from Varuna, a decision that had angered Yeddyurappa’s supporters.
Initial reports suggested the central leadership of the BJP was miffed with Yeddyurappa for his “unilateral decision” to project his son as the Varuna candidate. Vijayendra had rented a house in the constituency and started campaigning there immediately after the election was announced.
“We have given so many tickets on Yeddyurappa’s recommendation. In his son’s case, we had to say no because it would have undermined one of our main poll planks — the dynasty politics practised by Congressmen from Delhi to Bengaluru,” the senior BJP functionary said.
“It will become a big issue once the Prime Minister resumes his campaign. It was the same reason for denying (BJP MP) Shobha Karandlaje — a close aide of Yeddyurappa — a ticket. Yeddyurappaji knows all about it,” the functionary added.
The bigger picture
The BJP’s decision might have undermined its chief ministerial candidate’s stature but the party won’t let individual interests influence its strategy to win what party president Amit Shah has called their gateway to the South.
The Karnataka assembly elections are likely to set the momentum for crucial polls in three states currently led by the BJP —Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — in November, and the 2019 general elections. These four states together send 93 members to the Lok Sabha; of these, the BJP won 79 in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
The Karnataka assembly election is also important because it’s the first time since the Modi juggernaut started steamrolling the opposition that a regional chieftain from a rival party has made BJP strategists sweat. They are often seen to be at their wits’ end to counter Siddaramaiah’s gambits: From a plan to divide the BJP’s core vote bank in the state, the Lingayats, for whom his government has recommended the status of separate religion, to his attempts to play the sub-nationalism and Karnataka ‘asmita (pride)’ card.
The BJP’s usual poll planks in elections since 2014 have been corruption charges against opposition leaders, contrasted with the NDA government’s clean record at the Centre, and the Modi’s development agenda, blended with Hindutva and clever caste combinations.
Many of these planks have been neutralised in Karnataka’s context. Corruption charges against the Yeddyurappa-led government and the saffron party’s decision to allot tickets to Ballari’s controversial Reddy brothers and their associates may have taken the sting out of the BJP’s anti-corruption plank.
With Siddaramaiah dictating the political discourse — Celebrations for Tipu Sultan’s anniversary, a separate Karnataka flag, separate religion status to Lingayats, et al — the saffron party has been struggling to build the development narrative.
“No political party has a winning narrative. Everything depends on Modiji now,” said a BJP leader at the party headquarters in Bengaluru. Now that’s not a new line.