Voting in the high stakes Karnataka Assembly election began on Wednesday, with the state seeing a three-cornered fight between incumbent BJP, an aggressive Congress and the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular), which would hope to play kingmaker again.
Voting will take place till 6 pm amid tight security arrangements and the ballots will be counted on Saturday. A total of 2,615 candidates are in the fray. Karnataka has 224 constituencies spanning six regions -- Bengaluru, Central, Coastal, Hyderabad-Karnataka, Mumbai-Karnataka and Southern Karnataka or Old Mysore region. Mumbai-Karnataka and Southern Karnataka are the largest regions of the state and consist of 50 and 51 Assembly seats respectively.
While BJP will hope to buck the 38-year trend of Karnataka never voting the incumbent party to power since 1985, Congress will look to wrest the state despite forming a government after the last election in 2018.
In the 2018 election, Deve Gowda's son HD Kumaraswamy became the CM after JD(S) entered into a post-poll alliance with the Congress. No party secured a majority in that election. However, the government lasted barely a year, with BJP weaning away MLAs, leading to the collapse of the JD(S)-Congress government in July 2019. BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the House in the 2018 election, winning 104 seats.
The campaigning saw both BJP and Congress going full throttle, with a host of top leaders from both parties like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka addressing rallies and roadshows to woo the voters.
The last stretch of campaigning saw BJP going all out on Congress over its manifesto promising strict action against outfits such as the Bajrang Dal, calling it an insult to Hanuman and his devotees.
PM Modi also raised the pitch at his ralllies, saying Congress's promise of action against Bajrang Dal was an insult to Hanuman. "First they (the Congress) locked up Lord Ram (alluding to the Ramjanmabhoomi row) and now they have vowed to lock up those who chant ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’," Modi had said.
On the other hand, Congress launched a vitriolic attack on Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai's government over allegations of corruption and bribery. Last year, the Congress had launched a mock campaign -- PayCM -- to highlight allegations that the state's ruling BJP was extracting 40 per cent commission from builders, contractors and others.
The election is a fight for survival for the Congress and its performance will affect its fate in two of the only three states it holds power now as elections are due later this year in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
The May 13 result will also determine the way the wind blows ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha election next year. Moreover, a victory will also give the Congress bragging rights as it tries to unite like-minded parties to form an Opposition front to take on the Modi juggernaut next year.
For the BJP, which has been riddled with defections of high-profile leaders like Jagadish Shettar, the polls are important as Karnataka is the only southern state it is in power. A loss this time means they will completely lose their foothold in the south.
If the latest opinion poll conducted by ABP-CVoter is to be believed, Congress is likely to get a simple majority on its own in Karnataka and dislodge BJP. Of the total 224 seats in the Karnataka Assembly, the results of the opinion poll show that BJP is likely to win in 73-85 seats, Congress in 110-122 seats and the JD(S) in 21-29 seats.
The majority mark for a party to stake claim to form a government is 113.