New Delhi (TIP)- In a boost to the BJP ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the JD(S) in Karnataka joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Friday, September 22, cementing the decision to fight with the saffron party in a pre-election pact.
The BJP, which hit its peak in Karnataka in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections winning 25 of the state’s 28 parliamentary seats, was looking to seal the alliance with the JD(S), which has long held a sway among the Vokkaligas, the state’s second-most dominant caste after Lingayats and the minorities. “I am happy that the JD(S) has decided to be a part of the NDA. We wholeheartedly welcome it to the NDA. This will further strengthen the NDA and vision of PM Narendra Modi ji for a ‘new India, strong India’,” BJP president JP Nadda said after a meeting with HD Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) at his residence.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also present at the meeting. Shah negotiated with the JD(S) supremo and former PM HD Deve Gowda on the pre-poll arrangements which the parties are yet to disclose formally. In the recently concluded Karnataka elections, the Congress won big bagging 135 of the 224 Assembly seats, followed by the BJP at 66 and the JD(S) at its lowest-ever 19 as the Vokkaligas and even minorities shifted away from it.
Interestingly, in the 2019 LS polls, the JD(S) had contested in a pre-poll pact with the Congress against the BJP. The alliance failed to impress as the BJP won 25 seats and the 26th — Mandya — was won by an Independent the BJP backed. Only two MPs of the Congress-JD(S) alliance won in 2019 — Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar’s brother D Suresh (Congress) and HD Kumaraswamy’s nephew Prajwal Revanna.
BJP sources said in 2024, they could do with allies in Karnataka where their performance had peaked in 2019.
Karnataka and Telangana are the only southern states that returned BJP MPs (25 and four, respectively) to the Lok Sabha in 2019. The saffron party drew a blank in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
The pact comes as a breather for the BJP days after the AIADMK recently announced it would not ally with the BJP in Tamil Nadu.
How does it change the caste-calculus?
The BJP and JD (S) are parties with a historic core-support base among Lingayats and Vokkaligas respectively. Lingayats and Vokkaligas are the two numerically dominant social groups in the state. If one looks at social-group wise vote share projections by Axis My India Exit poll for Karnataka – they got the vote shares and seat shares right – even in the 2023 assembly elections, the BJP and JD (S) had a big lead vis-a-vis the Congress among these two social groups and their coming together will further consolidate this advantage. However, the Congress had a massive advantage among Kurubas, Muslims and Dalits and was almost neck and neck with even the combined vote share of BJP and JD (S) among Scheduled Tribe (ST) voters.
How does it impact sub-regional politics?
The JD (S) has mainly been a party in the southern part of Karnataka which is exactly the area where it has a long-standing rivalry with the Congress. There was not much of a BJP presence in the region until the 2018 Karnataka assembly elections. However, this changed in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when the Congress and the JD (S) fought in an alliance and the BJP won 25 out of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies. The 2023 assembly elections only added to the JD(S)’s problems as their vote share even in the regional stronghold saw a two-way erosion — to both the BJP and the Congress. Seen in this backdrop, the JD(S)’s decision to align with the BJP seems like a survival strategy.
Will it bring electoral gains for the BJP-JD(S) alliance?
Simple arithmetic suggests that it will. If one were to add the vote shares of BJP and JD (S) across all 224 assembly constituencies (ACs) in the 2023 Karnataka elections, the Congress’s tally of 135 would fall to 90. However, it is important to underline the fact that political alliances seldom result in a simple addition of votes of alliance partners. The Congress and the JD(S) learnt this the hard way in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when they could win only 47 out of the 224 AC segments whereas a simple addition of 2018 vote shares would have given them 152 ACs.
Source: TNS and HT