Bengaluru: One instance of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA cross-voting and another having abstained became the highlight of the Rajya Sabha elections for Karnataka Tuesday.
Though the Congress was comfortably placed to win all three seats it contested on, the open defiance by the MLAs of the BJP’s instructions now poses a challenge for the party and its new alliance partner Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S), ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
There were five candidates for the four Rajya Sabha seats from the state. While Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and G.C. Chandrashekhar of the Congress, and Narayana K. Bhandage of the BJP secured comfortable victories in their respective seats, filling up all four vacancies in the RS from Karnataka, JD(S) candidate Kupendra Reddy managed to get only 36 votes, falling short by nine votes.
The RS polls celebration by the Congress was given a new spin by the BJP who said that supporters of Hussain chanted ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. A video of the incident has gone viral and supporters can be seen chanting Hussain’s name and what sounds like ‘Naseer Sahab Zindabad’.
The BJP has filed an official complaint against the incident and Hussain told reporters that if such a chant was raised, then an investigation should be carried out.
The focus on the alleged anti-national chants, however, does not take away the challenge the BJP and JD(S) face in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections.
S.T. Somashekar, the BJP legislator from Yeshvantpura, cast his vote in favour of the Congress and Arabail Shivaram Hebbar, the BJP MLA from Yellapur, abstained from polling, according to people aware of the developments.
“Somashekar voted for the Congress,” Doddanagouda Patil, the BJP’ chief whip in the assembly, told reporters in Bengaluru, adding that the party had failed to establish contact with Hebbar.
Their open defiance is not only an indication of the simmering dissent within the BJP ranks in the state, but has also fuelled speculations of another round of exodus ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, raising doubts about whether it will be able to repeat its 2019 performance of winning 25 out of the 28 parliamentary seats in the state.
“Whoever promises to give my constituency more money from their (Rajya Sabha) grants, I will give my first preference votes for them” Somashekar told reporters in Bengaluru Tuesday afternoon, adding that he would vote with his conscience.
A total of 222 out of the 224 MLAs in the lower house cast their votes Tuesday, as Hebbar abstained from voting and one Congress MLA had died earlier this week.
Switching sides
Somashekar and Hebbar were among the 17 members who defected from the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in 2019 after the alliance suffered a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls that year. A majority of those who defected in 2019 are considered close to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, referring to him as “our leader”, even when in the BJP.
Somashekar and Hebbar are prominent names in Karnataka’s political landscape but not for their influence. Somashekar served as the cooperation minister and Hebbar headed the labour ministry when they defected from the Congress in 2019 and were re-elected on a BJP ticket.
In the May 2023 assembly elections, Somashekar had secured over 1.5 lakh votes, winning by a margin of over 15,000 votes, while Hebbar got over 74,000 votes, winning by a margin of around 4,000 votes.
Somashekar is a Vokkaliga and Hebbar a Brahmin, and though the two leaders have little influence outside their respective constituencies, the Congress is attempting to spark a reverse exodus within the BJP as well as consolidate support for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Yeshvantpura falls within Bengaluru North Lok Sabha constituency and Yellapur comes under Uttara Kannada MP seat. In both these seats, the BJP has had a stranglehold for at least the past three elections and the Congress is hopeful of gaining more ground with the likes of Hebbar and Somashekar.
‘Betrayed the mother’
In Tuesday’s Rajya Sabha polls, the Congress secured 139 votes in total, while the BJP-JD(S) alliance secured just 83.
R. Ashok, the Leader of the Opposition told reporters Tuesday that he was in constant touch with Somashekar and Hebbar even on the day of the elections and that a ‘whip’ was conveyed to them by phone and physical notice was sent to their respective homes and offices. He said that the two leaders’ actions were like “betraying the mother”.
To be sure, political parties cannot issue whip for RS elections, nor would it attract disqualification under the 10th schedule under the constitution.
“I feel that people will not like this constant betrayal. S.T. Somashekar came to the BJP from Congress and has enjoyed being made a minister. (B.S.) Yediyurappa and we had made him the Mysuru district in-charge as well, which is very prestigious. After all this, to say that only if we are given money (by the Rajya Sabha candidate) that we’ll vote for them, or otherwise go against them…. How much money we have given him when we were in power. I feel he has committed political suicide,” he told reporters.
There were protests by BJP and JD(S) workers outside Somashekar’s home in Bengaluru after it was revealed that he voted for the Congress.
A shaky start
The Congress has 134 legislators currently (one MLA died two days ago), the BJP has 66 and the JD(S) 19. There are four independents in the 224 seats in the lower house.
Each Rajya Sabha candidate needed 45 votes to secure a win. The BJP and JD(S) fielded Kupendra Reddy as the fifth candidate. The BJP had 21 additional votes and coupled with the 19 JD(S) MLAs, the contest was expected to be a close one for Reddy who needed around six more votes to cross the line.
The alliance had also hoped that it could get some Congress legislators to cross-vote but on Tuesday, things didn’t go as planned.
After having lost out on the legislative council elections barely a week ago, the Rajya Sabha elections were being used to see if the combined might of the national party and its regional partner can manage to corner the Congress or lure its legislators.
But the BJP saw two of its own switch sides.
Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said he was not aware if Somashekar voted for the Congress and remained tight-lipped about Hebbar. He, however, took a dig at the BJP-JD(S) alliance, calling it shaky and ‘unholy’.
“BJP could have transferred votes in excess of 45 to the JD(S) candidate, but it has shortchanged the JD(S) by retaining 48 votes for its candidate,” Shivakumar told reporters Tuesday in Bengaluru.
In spite of the defeat, a dejected looking H.D. Kumaraswamy tried to score one back against his two principal rivals — the Congress and CM Siddaramaiah.
The JD(S) leader said that his party’s MLAs had stuck together. “Ever since the Congress party formed the government…they (Congress) acted as though 11-12 legislators from the JD(S) had already switched over. Our MLAs have given them an answer today,” Kumaraswamy told reporters.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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