Karnataka Results: Limitations Of Hindutva, 'Brand Modi' — Takeaways For BJP As It Loses Only South Citadel Ahead Of 2024

BJP has lost its lone stronghold in the south.

Source : PTI

Karnataka Election Result 2023: Let’s rewind to March 2 when the results of the assembly elections to the states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya were declared. Prime Minister Modi was accorded a grand welcome at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in New Delhi where he announced that the final frontier would be down south. 

As the Karnataka election results got declared Saturday, one cannot but imagine an encore, in case the results were in the BJP’s favour. Retaining Karnataka would have been spun as a precursor to its march ahead into Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Perhaps, that also explains the desperation of the prime minister going into the last lap of the Karnataka election, expending so much energy in the state. 

Unlike any of his previous campaigns in assembly elections, except possibly the Gujarat assembly election in 2017, Modi held 18 rallies and six roadshows, three of these in Bengaluru alone, in the week preceding the polls. Consequently, the results must come as a huge disappointment to the saffron party’s southern ambitions.

Limitations Of Hindutva

If the defeat rankles anyone more than the PM today, it has to be BL Santhosh, the BJP’s general secretary for organisation. It was Santhosh’s brainchild to overturn the BJP’s strategy of social engineering with an aggressive Hindutva pitch, going by its success in coastal Karnataka and Malnad regions. Alas, Karnataka proved it wasn’t ready to embrace political Hindutva — as yet.

Santhosh’s chief ministerial ambitions are fairly well-known, but his best shot at getting the coveted post in the near future would rest on reviving the Tulu Nadu state demand on a linguistic basis, carved out of Karnataka and the erstwhile South Canara region of Kerala. 

Limitation Of ‘Brand Modi’

The diminishing returns of PM Modi’s campaigns in assembly elections is also a cause for concern for the BJP. Overselling of Modi in assembly polls, even when the chances of winning are bleak, should be a cause for a rethink. If an advertorial principle were to be applied here, how much is too much, and is it leading to the overexposure of ‘Brand Modi’?

Come to think of it, a major reason for the PM’s aggressive campaign was hinged on the BJP crossing 80 seats and forming an alliance government with the JD(S) to stay in power. However, it was too late to salvage the campaign by then, with the Congress taking an early lead.

The Bajrang Dal Issue

The Congress manifesto promise to proscribe militant outfits such as Bajrang Dal is significant in this context. While there are multiple views on the feasibility of such a ban, the BJP sought to aggressively mobilise its cadres by equating the Bajrang Dal with Bajrang Bali, the revered Hindu God, Hanuman. 

That the PM himself would lead the charge on the issue wasn’t really surprising. The Karnataka voters didn’t fall for the bait, though. A lot many people were convinced ahead of the polls that the PM’s aggressive campaign would propel the party to have a stake in power, but that wasn’t to be.

In fact, many people blamed the Congress for offering the BJP such an issue on a platter. If their assumption was that the BJP wouldn’t resort to polarisation in the absence of it, they are grossly mistaken. There were many issues ranging from Imran Pratapgarhi’s name figuring on the Congress star campaigners’ list to the release of the propaganda film, The Kerala Story, which was sought to be communalised towards the latter half of the campaign.

Shifting The Discourse Leftwards

Coming back to the issue of Bajrang Dal’s proscription, regardless of how it played out in the campaign, it is important to dwell on the significance of the move. The BJP has managed to shift the discourse rightwards in recent times so much that the Congress sounds almost apologetic while speaking up on minority rights these days.

How does the Congress set this right? 

That can happen only by taking the fight to the BJP, by not sidestepping such issues. If the Congress does go ahead and ban the Bajrang Dal, it will be a historic move in the context of secular polity in the country. And with good reason, too. The Bajrang Dal has been a nuisance for successive governments from the 1990s in Karnataka, even creating an Ayodhya-like situation in Chikkamagaluru at a shrine in the past.

The defeat of BJP national general secretary and hardliner CT Ravi from Chikkamagaluru (with his association with Bajrang Dal in the past) would be all the cue the Congress needs if it is serious about the proscription. 

There was an air of despondency to the BJP’s offices in Kerala as the results from the neighbouring state trickled in today. The Kerala unit of the BJP was hoping for a miracle to make the most of its recent strides in the state. 

Just as Karnataka was the BJP’s lone citadel in the south, Congress with all its might in the region did not have a government in any of these states after failing to win Kerala in 2021. That equation changed completely today.

The author is a journalist and columnist based in South India.

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