a2023 Karnataka Assembly elections head, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) The state is working on a multi-pronged approach with a special focus on wooing multiple communities. BJP strategists describe it as a “promise of development” with “social engineering”. They know that maintaining power is not easy. No ruling party has been re-elected in almost three and a half decades in the political history of Karnataka. This shows that the anti-incumbency wave is not easy to beat. The task has been made difficult for the ruling BJP, which is aggressively trying to connect with people through various measures including the major opposition party, the Congress, the Bharat Jodi Yatra, which passed through the state recently. The other opposition party, the Janata Dal (Secular), which has the potential to tilt the scales, is keen to retain its hold on Vokkaliga-dominated areas.
The BJP has been pushed into defensive mode, especially when it is facing allegations of corruption and irregularities in the recruitment of police sub-inspectors. Recently, the Karnataka State Contractors Association accused the BJP government, MPs, MLAs and officials in the state of harassing them for paying commission of up to 40% on government tenders. Simultaneously, Municipal Administration Minister N. A video clip of Nagaraju created a storm. He was reportedly heard speaking to a police officer about Inspector Nandish, who had died of heart failure, who was “paid ₹70 lakh-₹80 lakh” for the posting. . It is in this context that the BJP is relying on “social engineering”.
In a major move, the state cabinet increased the reservation to 2% for Scheduled Castes (SC) and 4% for Scheduled Tribes (ST). The timing of the move was significant, as it came just before the party began its state tour, the Jan Sankalp Yatra. Three teams of state BJP leaders are organizing two conferences every day as part of this yatra. They have been highlighting the increase in reservation in every conference. Apart from this, the party is also organizing eight different state-level conferences of different communities and groups such as Other Backward Classes (OBC), STs, SCs, women, youth, farmers, minorities and weavers. While the OBC convention has been held, the ST convention is scheduled to be held on November 20 in Ballari. The BJP is specifically trying to woo the OBC, SC and ST communities – whom the Congress considers to be the main constituent of its support base. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the reservation quota for the economically weaker sections, the BJP is gearing up to highlight this fact among the upper caste voters.
The party has also devised a strategy to attract powerful Lingayats and Vokkaligas. While Lingayats form a major support base of the BJP, Vokkaligas have remained elusive for the party so far. While the BJP is hoping to retain its Lingayat support base, it is now trying to woo the Vokkaligas. The government is all set to unveil a 108-feet bronze statue of Bengaluru founder Kempe Gowda in the premises of Bengaluru International Airport in its effort to garner Vokkaliga votes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the statue on November 11. To create some momentum for the event, the BJP government has already launched a 45-day campaign during which “holy sludge” is being collected from water bodies in all villages of the state. , The party is planning to use this soil to develop the theme park which houses the idol. The grand Kumbh Mela organized by the government at Vokkaliga stronghold in Mandya district in mid-October was also seen in political circles as an attempt to gain a political foothold in that part of the state.
In Bengaluru city, which has 28 constituencies out of a total of 224 in the assembly, the party is trying to push a development agenda through Mr. Modi. While the Prime Minister announced a suburban rail project for the city during his previous visit, he is going to unveil South India’s first Vande Bharat train on the Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysuru route during his visit to Bengaluru on November 11.
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It remains to be seen whether this strategy of social engineering mixed with the promise of development will help the BJP fight the anti-incumbency wave as well as allegations of corruption.