In 2018 the BJP could win as many as 104 seats in Karnataka, falling just a few short of the magic majority mark in the 224-member assembly. The first few days experiment under B S Yediyurappa was cut short as Congress and the JD-S came together.
Ultimately in July 2019 – just a few weeks after PM Modi’s return to power in Delhi; 17 Congress and JD(S) MLAs defected to the saffron party camp, and thus the BJP returned to power in Karnataka under veteran BSY.
Now in the run-up to the assembly polls, the BJP faced the anti-incumbency challenge, and thus it required a few game changers. The ‘Modi magic’ was its chief trump card, as always.
The right synthesis of Hindutva and development make all the difference. The party leaders also worked overtime to present before the voter’s various facets of the ‘benefits’ of the double-engine Government.
In the last few days, it was blessed with the ‘God Hanuman’ factor as the Congress perhaps unnecessarily took the risk of Muslim appeasement and blasted out at the Bajrang Dal, comparing it with the Islamic Popular Front of India (PFI).
This was a heaven-sent opportunity for the Lotus party and the Modi-Amit Shah duo. Many compared the Congress flip-flop with Sonia Gandhi’s ‘Maut-Ka-Saudagar’ blunder of 2007 in Gujarat polls.
PM Modi himself played up the Bajrang Dal row effectively. He made it a point to chant ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ in all his speeches after the Congress released the manifesto.
Other BJP leaders made “God Hanuman” a campaign issue and PM Modi and important leaders such as Amit Shah and J P Nadda rightly likened the ‘proposed ban’ with locking up the God Hanuman.
The Hindu voters, for their part in Karnataka, got ready to pull up their sleeves to fight out the ‘monster of Muslim appeasement’. This was truly a game-changer. On-ground reports suggested that post the Bajrang Dal fiasco by Congress, the leaders in the grand old party have also grown ‘defensive’ and are not sure of how much damage the Bajrang Dal ‘ban’ row could cause.
One survey by an otherwise pro-Congress media group says an overwhelming 43 per cent of voters said the ‘Bajrang Dal ban’ episode would help the BJP and harm Congress.
Predictably Congress later tried to do some damage control and came up with a new pledge that they would also construct temples for God Hanuman. However, it goes without saying that the Congress leaders will do well to recall what veteran A K Antony had said some years ago that the grand old party is now easily identified as a pro-Muslim and an anti-Hindu party.
The saffron party has another game-changer factor, which will also be crucial in May 10 polling.
“The BJP has 72 new faces, and this move will help us increase our seats and victory margins,” says an important State leader Vijay Prasad.
In 2018 the saffron party won 104. It was its second-best performance after 110 in 2008. The majority mark is 113, and hence from Nadda to PM Modi, everyone is expecting to achieve that milestone.
“We are in fact targeting around 150 seats….We said so in Gujarat, and the media and our rivals had underestimated us. We will again prove such experts wrong,” says a central BJP leader who has been engaged almost full time for drawing up electoral strategies and campaign programmes.
There are yet again about 27 seats where BJP’s winning margin was less than 10,000. The party has identified these seats and has drawn up plans to tighten the loose ends. The booth workers have been specially instructed to walk the extra mile.
In the same context, Congress had won 36 seats with less than 10,000 margins, and JD-S had won 10 in that category.
Thus, the BJP poll managers feel these 46 seats will be in the ‘winnable’ list, and these could make a big difference on the counting day.
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