Karnataka elections 2023 : Candidate selection repeats the story of Himachal Pradesh polls

The BJP leaders who have left the party to join the opposition or to contest as independents after not finding their names in candidate lists reminds of the Himachal Pradesh polls held last year and its fallout for the party, writes ETV Bharat's Network Editor Bilal Bhat.

Hyderabad:The experience that the BJP had during the Himachal Pradesh elections conducted last year seems to be repeating itself in the southern state of Karnataka, which is going to polls on May 10. The state that the saffron party considers is strategically important for them to increase influence in the neighboring states as it shares borders with all of India's southern and western states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Goa.

In Karnataka, the ruling BJP is trying every tactic possible to keep the fort intact and continue to rule the state, which is why the party delayed the list of candidates to avert defection. As one of the measures to involve ground workers in the selection process of candidates for the assembly polls was to make the aspiring leaders believe that the candidate has to pass the ground test. Over 2000 party leaders from 224 seats were asked to propose three top candidates for every constituency. The best one from that was picked. After four days of marathon meetings attended by top BJP leaders, the candidate list was announced. The BJP designed this way of selecting candidates to send a message to the last man in the state that the list is prepared on the recommendations of party workers in the field rather than from Delhi.

There is a widespread belief that emerged from the Himachal assembly elections conducted last year that the fate of state leaders is determined by some bigwigs in Delhi. Vandana Guleria, a BJP leader from Himachal, went on to say sarcastically after she was denied a ticket that the list might come from Delhi, but votes would have to be cast here.

After the BJP made first two candidate lists public in Karnataka, party leaders who expected to see their names on the list were outraged. Sulking BJP leaders who have been denied tickets pose an imminent danger to the party in the state. Given the BJP's candidate lists, there are perhaps 20 to 30 seats where unhappy leaders have significant influence and may act as spoilers. Lingayat leaders like Jagdish Shettar and Laxman Savadi are potentially a major threat for the BJP as they have a huge influence over their community, which makes 17 percent of vote in the state. Unlike other defected BJP members, Shattar is a former RSS man and his father was also a powerful person in the BJP, which may confuse the dedicated Lingayat vote bank of the BJP.

This level of serious defection in the BJP is recurring consecutively in the second state after Himachal because of the candidate selection. They could not manage the unhappy lot and had to face defeat in the hill state. A similar situation occurred in Karnataka, where it amplified the existing anti-incumbency factor, potentially may lead to the division of votes, despite the BJP's best efforts to avoid this situation by delaying seat nominations in the state. The decision of dismayed BJP leaders to run as independents after failing to make the party's candidate list may decrease the BJP's chances of forming a government because it may fall short of the seats required.

Himachal could have been a lesson for the BJP to learn from the mistakes it committed in finalising the candidate list, where a disgruntled candidate from Solan district’s Nalagarh constituency filed nomination as an Independent after the party awarded a ticket to another man, and he won the seat. Same way, the Kullu and Haroli seats went to Congress after the BJP’s decision of renomination of seats angered the supporters. Indira Kapoor’s replacement with Neelam Nayyar came at a cost for the saffron party, and the decision drew a huge agitation because the candidate had a tainted background, she had been convicted in a corruption case.

It is obvious that in a tight race, defection is going to affect the election outcome. The BJP's idea of keeping the party above the candidate seems to have lost its relevance in the context of elections, which is quite obvious primarily from Himachal polls and now repeats in Karnataka, where it reinforces the idea further. Himachal was still easy to manipulate compared to Karnataka, where factors are myriad which can influence vote politics. BJP attempting to appease the major castes- Lingayats and Vokaligas-gets cornered by other castes like Banjaras etc. The Hyderabad Karnataka and Central Karnataka are going to be crucial for the BJP this time because the party derives a good number of its MLAs from these regions. It will be interesting to see how the BJP strikes the balance between the impact of defection with the level of campaigning required to reduce it.