Bengaluru: Five exit polls have predicted a hung assembly in Karnataka and the Janata Dal (Secular) in a position to play kingmaker, while three predicted the Congress emerging as the single largest party and two placed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the lead.
The Times Now-ETG exit poll placed Congress at the majority mark of 113, the BJP at 85 and the JD(S) at 23 in the 224-member assembly. India Today-Axis My India too gave the Congress a clear majority with 122-140 seats, followed by BJP with 62-80 seats and the JD(S) with 20-25 seats. Similarly, the News 24-Today’s Chanakya also placed the Congress ahead with a comfortable lead of 120 seats, the BJP with 92 and the JD(S) with 12 seats.
News Nation-CGS gave the BJP a lead with 114 seats, followed by the Congress with 86 and the JD(S) 21 seats, while Suvarna News-Jan Ki Baat gave the BJP a slight edge with 94-117, followed by the Congress with 91-106 and JD(S) with 14-24 seats.
The exit poll by ABP News-C Voter gave the Congress 100-112 seats, the BJP 83-95 and the JD(S) 21-29 seats. India TV-CNX predicted 110-120 seats for the Congress, 80-90 for the BJP and 20-24 for the JD(S). Republic TV-P MARQ, meanwhile, predicted 94-108 seats for the Congress, 85-100 for the BJP and 24-32 for the JD(S).
TV 9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat predicted 99-109 seats for Congress, 88-98 for BJP and 21-26 for JD(S), and the Zee News-Matrize exit poll predicted that Congress could emerge as the single largest party with 103-118, followed by BJP with 79-94 and JD(S) with 25-33 seats.
The range of seats was high, indicating that survey agencies are hedging their bets, with most showing that none of the three leading parties in Karnataka are anywhere close to the numbers they were claiming to bag in the run-up to the polls. Nearly all exit polls predicted that there would be a maximum of 3-5 Independents in the new assembly.
Besides Telangana, Karnataka is the only other state in southern India to go to the polls before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which the Narendra Modi-led BJP is eyeing a third term.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, the BJP’s face in the state — alongside his predecessor B.S. Yeddiyurappa — had appealed to voters through the media in Shiggaon in Haveri district to “strengthen democracy” and write a “progressive and glorious future for Karnataka” by using their right to vote.
Earlier in the day, leaders of the BJP, the Congress, and the JD(S) and their families were photographed at places of worship before heading to the polling booths.
Polling in Karnataka was held Wednesday, with the counting of votes set to take place on 13 May.
High-octane campaign
This time around, the Modi-led BJP carried out a high-octane campaign with the prime minister addressing as many as 19 public meetings and six roadshows, including a blitzkrieg in Bengaluru.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed 16 public meetings and took part in 15 roadshows, while BJP president J.P. Nadda held 10 public meetings and 16 roadshows, according to data shared by the state BJP.
The BJP, under Bommai, pursued issues such as the hijab, halal, azaan, and the anti-conversion law among others, while promising to safeguard Hindutva. But when issues such as Tipu Sultan vs Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Uri Gowda-Nanje Gowda and others failed to resonate with the masses, the party reverted to social engineering by trying to retain the Lingayat support base and reaching out to other dominant communities.
The BJP also targeted former Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the purported use of the word ‘sovereignty’ in a public meeting, accusing the Congress of leading the ‘Tukde-Tukde’ gang. Gandhi did not use the word in her speech in Hubballi but a Twitter post from the Congress official handle did put sovereignty in quotes, making it out to be part of the speech.
In comparison, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held at least 18 rallies and two roadshows between 16 April and 10 May, while Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held 12 public meetings and eight roadshows during the same period, according to Congress sources.
The Congress party localised the elections and tried to steer clear of national issues in its campaign, focussing extensively on state issues with an emphasis on rising prices and alleged corruption, while also accusing the BJP of insulting its own Lingayat leaders.
The Congress has been trying to secure the backing of the dominant Lingayat community by highlighting the alleged mistreatment of leaders such as B.S. Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi; the latter two joined the Congress last month.
Several Lingayat forums have resolved not to back the BJP, but it remains to be seen if the community will return to the Congress fold nearly four decades after it distanced itself from the party.
Although the Congress party’s manifesto promise to ban the Bajrang Dal and the Popular Front of India (PFI) did appear to have prompted the BJP to make Hindutva its main poll plank, it remains to be seen whether the issue will have any impact on the outcome of this high-stakes election.
Hung assembly & horse-trading
Past results have shown that Karnataka’s voters have different voting preferences when it comes to parliamentary and assembly elections.
In the 2018 assembly elections, concordant with most exit polls’ prediction of a fractured verdict, voters in Karnataka delivered a hung assembly. In contrast, less than a year later, the BJP swept Karnataka in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, winning 25 of 28 seats.
The NDTV poll of polls for the 2018 assembly election — drawing a final poll from the results of nine earlier exit polls — had indicated that the BJP would be the single largest party with around 97 seats and the Congress would come in a close second with 90. The JD(S) was predicted to win 31 seats.
Three of the nine agencies had predicted that one of the parties would win a majority.
It is important to note that since the early 1980s, voters in Karnataka have dismissed every single incumbent government, often delivering a fractured verdict that gives way to unstable post-poll coalitions and horse trading.
Political instability in Karnataka
The S.M. Krishna-led Congress won a majority in the 1999 Karnataka polls but allied with the JD(S) in 2004. This alliance was short-lived since JD(S) chief H.D. Deve Gowda’s son H.D. Kumaraswamy walked out of the coalition and joined hands with the BJP to rule for another two years.
However, this coalition too did not last long since the JD(S) pulled out of the government just seven days after Kumaraswamy handed over the chief minister’s office to B.S. Yediyurappa.
This was followed by just over a month of President’s Rule in the state, followed by the Yediyurappa-led BJP bagging 110 of 224 seats in the 2008 assembly polls — just three short of the majority mark.
The alleged poaching of MLAs that followed led to the opposition coining the term ‘Operation Kamala’ to allege large-scale post-poll horse trading.
Although the BJP was ruling on its own, allegations of corruption and growing infighting saw Yediyurappa’s government held hostage by his own minister, Gali Janardhana Reddy, who holed up in a resort with several legislators, demanding “better leadership”.
Yediyurappa was replaced by D.V. Sadananda Gowda, who served as CM from August 2011 till July 2012. Another round of dissent and infighting led to a change of chief minister and Jagadish Shettar was brought in.
This was followed by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress winning 123 seats in 2013, capitalising on the discord within the BJP and Yediyurappa’s exit.
However, in 2018, the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 104 seats and Yediyurappa was sworn in as chief minister for just two days before his government fell owing to lack of numbers.
Kumaraswamy then became chief minister after the Congress backed him, but this government, too, fell in 2019 after 14 months as 17 legislators from the coalition defected in batches. Yediyurappa was then sworn in as CM but the BJP replaced him with Basavaraj Bommai in July 2021.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)