Rekha Chowdhary
The Karnataka Assembly election makes an interesting study about the State of party politics, governance, leadership and regional-national equations. Though the election result has enthused the opposition and will certainly be a factor in strategising the 2024 Parliamentary elections, yet even the most optimist within opposition parties are aware that this election has more of ‘regional’ logic and consequences rather than the national ones. And the ‘Karnataka experiment’ may not be replicated at the national level. In any case, Indian politics for quite some time now has given the clear indications that the competitive politics at the State level may not be in the mirror image of the national level. In a true spirit of federal politics where every citizen has the right to choose the national as well as the State Government, the Indian voter has been wise enough to make a distinction between the two and giving mandate differently for the national or State elections. The party system, meanwhile, has also been following the federal spirit and one can clearly see a different nature of party system at the national level and a different one at the State level. The one party dominant system – with BJP in a position of dominance and a very weak opposition, operating at the national level is not reproduced at the level of the States where competition continues to be intense – and in many States, regional parties are the most decisive players.
Karnataka falls in the tradition of voters consciously changing their mandate every five year. In last few elections, the three parties BJP, Congress and JD(S) have been the main competitors and the voters have been changing their preference regularly – thus giving larger number of seats to BJP in 2008, to Congress in 2013 and again to BJP in 2018. Since the incumbent Government finds it difficult to be re-elected in the next election, there was already an assumption that BJP will be having tough time there. However, with the BJP leadership at the national level putting in all its energies in this election, there was a talk of ‘hung Assembly’. The results however showed, that the voters had clearly made up their mind and they not only wanted to oust the incumbent Government, but wanted to give the message of its resentment and discontent against this Government very forcefully. As the political analysts have been pointing out, this resentment was due to the governance-deficit on the one hand and the ‘corruption tag’ on the ruling party, on the other.
On the part of BJP, lack of performance of the Government was sought to be compensated by its agenda of emotive issues. Local concerns, in the process were completely put in the margins. The election, for the party, became totally dependent on the personality of the PM and his personal appeal. In the end, as the results showed, whatever may be the national discourse, the local concerns matter. Howsoever may the people be impressed by the persona of the Prime Minister, governance matter and its absence matters much more. It was the anti-incumbency that was clearly reflected in the election result. More than half of the ministers, including the very high profile ones, actually lost elections – they had to pay the price of governance-deficit.
Compared to the BJP, the electoral narrative of the Congress was all focused on local issues. Aware of the strong anti-incumbency feeling at the ground level, the party took the advantage. What helped the party however, was a sustained campaign around the local issues and concerns. The party had succeeded in building a narrative related to governance with which the people connected.
Anti-incumbency, however, itself would not have been enough for the Congress to win the elections, it needed to strategise and plan – which it did and one could see the efforts put up by the party. For a party that does not have the reputation of giving an all-out fight in the elections – one can cite the example of Gujarat, where the party seems to have given up even without putting up a fight. But in Karnataka, it acted differently. It dealt with this election very seriously and in a very professional manner. The party seemed to be much more focused – maybe it saw a potential to win the election and it put in all its energies and gave an aggressive fight.
What worked for the party was its organisational strength at the State level. Factionalism, which is another problematic for the party – was quite missing here. On the contrary, it was the BJP which was seen to be inflicted by the problems of acute factionalism. So much so that two very senior leaders actually shifted away from the party in the last moments. For Congress, it was a cohesive organisation at the local level with two very strong leaders Siddaramaiah and D K Shivkumar anchoring the party without any sign of any conflict between them. Not that they were not ambitious and as we can see their ambitions coming out in the open after the elections, but throughout the elections, they seemed to be perfectly complimenting each other’s role. The situation for the BJP, as for as the local leadership was concerned, was completely different – there was lot of confusion in the party about the local leadership.
In the end, one can say that it was the local strength of the Congress that helped it win the elections. National leaders did play the role – Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were very much there, campaigning and mobilising the voters. But rather than overshadowing the local organisation or the local leaders, they were playing a supplementary role. The real game was in the hands of two local leaders.
So what was the role of the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) of Rahul Gandhi? Did it help Congress win the election. Though there are analysts arguing that the constituencies from where the Yatra passed, there was better performance of Congress, but rather than drawing a one-to-one relationship between the Yatra and electoral verdict, one may point to its indirect outcome. The Yatra did bring the Congress workers out of their apathetic mode and it did certainly enthuse them. The party in the State benefitted in getting reinvigorated through the Yatra and that must have contributed to its better performance.
This election has lots of lessons for the Congress party, at least at the State level competitive politics. This party, if it needs to remain relevant at the level of the States, it has to put its house in order and help strengthen its organisational structure at the State level. It has to deal with acute factionalism that the party is inflicted with in State after State. It also needs to come out of its ‘High Command’ mode of politics and allow greater political space to the local leaders.
(Feedback welcome at rekchowdhary@gmail.com)
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