Bangalore, March 13,2013:
By N.DIXIT
Advantage Congress.., a lesson to learn for BJP.., sweet and sour to JD’s, KJP and BSR congress party’s role limited to spoil sport, independents and rebels are now king makers. This is the verdict of the voters in the urban local body elections.
Congress emerged the clear winner, both in terms of number of seats as well as number of urban local bodies while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fighting for the second position with Janata Dal Secular when the results were declared on Monday.
Of the 207 ULB’s Congress has managed to win 71 followed by BJP 21, JDS 20, and KJP 05. With as many as 90 ULBs are left with no party can rule on its own, voters seems to have taught a lesson or two to all the political parties.
It also a lesson to all the prominent leaders, as they have received a setback in their own home turf. While it was mixed bag for Chief Minister Jagadish Shetter, Siddaramaiah, B S Yeddyurappa and H D Revanna at their home districts, D V Sadananda Gowda, K S Eshwarappa, Dr. G Parameshwar and Reddy brothers received a big blow at their own home turfs.
It is true, that ULB polls are neither representative of a majority of the State’s electorate, nor are they conclusive on the swing voter’s mood. Nevertheless, three clear trends emerge from the leads as of now.
The Congress continues to maintain its pole position in the Urban Local Bodies. While the Congress has significantly improved its performance, the overall result is far from a sweep. However the fact that the ground zero of saffron outfits in the recent years – Mangalore, Udupi and Malnad- has turned their backs on the BJP to favor the Congress, is really a welcome move for the century old party.
The lesson for the BJP is quite clear. Its indecent haste in attempting to consolidate –operation Lotus- has backfired. In the process, the opportunistic compromises the BJP resulted in political demands it could not credibly fulfill leading to this sorry state of affairs.
There is a lesson for the former Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa as well. The leader who quit BJP recently to launch his own outfit had attempted to paint him the victim; however he has emerged neither as King nor as likely king-maker. He is now headed down the path of being a bit player with the added vulnerability of his flock deserting him to cross over to the Congress.
With the JD-S holding ground sharing the second spot with the ruling BJP seems to be back to a pre-2008 scenario where it emerged king maker and shared power with both Congress and BJP in two different periods.
While the KJP and the BSR Congress may be fertile ground for the Congress to poach seats from it is worth pointing out that Karnataka’s track record at stable governance in a Coalition scenario is nothing to write home about.
Interestingly, the bigger story emerging from the ULB result is the trajectory politics in the State seems moving in a direction that is counter to the rest of the country. We have seen State after State in India consolidating towards a single-party majority or a majority for a stable coalition. However Karnataka seems to be heading towards the greater fragmentation with this six-way split between the three major parties on the one hand, the two splinter groups on the other hand and a large number of independents.
