The data for the 2023 election shows that the BJP failed on both the accounts.
Along with anti-incumbency and a strong narrative by the opposition, the BJP’s poor performance in the 2023 Karnataka election is perhaps an indictment of its social engineering strategies.
Ahead of the election, the BJP took two bold steps – one, to remove dependence on strong Lingayat political leaders, who have usually held the reins of the BJP in Karnataka; and second, denying candidature to unpopular legislators. BJP strategists at the time said it was a playbook adopted from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh to counter anti-incumbency, where ‘Hindutva’ often trumped caste calculations and the personal influence of legislators.
The 2023 election data shows that the BJP failed on both counts, pulling Lingayats towards the Congress and creating a situation where rebels ate into BJP votes.
Congress caste math beats BJP
Post-election statistics are often difficult to predict because any sweep by a party automatically boosts the performance of candidates, regardless of caste. In general, the Congress’s AHINDA strategy (a Kannada acronym for focus on minorities, other backward classes and Dalits) seemed to be working, with the party garnering high strike rates among candidates from these communities. The strike rate of BJP is high only among Brahmin candidates.
2023 performance by candidates, caste-wise
* Here the Government of Karnataka Category 1 and 2A for Other Backward Classes are considered as eligible castes and classes for reservation
Equally impressive is the Congress’s performance in SC/ST seats, where it focused on candidates from the SC-right community (which is largely agrarian), to which Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge belongs. In the 51 SC/ST reserved constituencies, the Congress gained 15 seats, while the BJP lost 10 and the JD(S) four, compared to the 2018 election. In these constituencies, the vote share of Congress in SC/ST constituencies has increased by about 9 percentage points.
Lingayats seem to be coming to Congress; BJP benefits from Vokkaliga
Constituencies in which the BJP and the Congress have fielded candidates from the same caste can give a broad (albeit, imperfect) sense of voter preferences across castes. That is, if the candidates of the two major parties are from the OBC community, it can be assumed that the OBC community forms a major presence in the constituency. Voting pattern here can be a proxy to determine the party preferred by these communities.
In 102 constituencies where the Congress and the BJP fielded candidates from the same caste (or, in the case of Dalit and Adivasi communities, from the same sub-caste), the Congress gained 32 seats, while the BJP gained 19. The loss occurred.
It seems that the key to the success of the Congress was the performance of its Lingayat candidates as well as the performance of constituencies reserved for SC/ST candidates.
Nearly three-fourths of the Congress’ Lingayat leaders have won, mainly in northern Karnataka. Through the election campaign, the Congress created a narrative that the BJP had betrayed and neglected the Lingayat vote base by sidelining former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and denying tickets to former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi. Though Shettar lost by a huge margin, the narrative seems to have gained some traction.
A clear indication of this is in the 38 constituencies where Lingayat candidates of the Congress were pitted against Lingayat candidates of the BJP.
The BJP has suffered major reverses in these constituencies: winning just eight in 2023 compared to 21 in 2018. The beneficiary was the Congress – winning 29 in 2023 as compared to just 14 in 2018. In 2023, JD(S) could win just one. these constituencies.
Comparing constituencies where BJP, Congress candidates were from the same caste
Source: Caste analysis of the candidates; ECI data for 2023 and 2018
This increase is also being seen in the vote share. Constituencies where both BJP and Congress candidates selected Lingayat candidates can be considered to have a large Lingayat population. In 38 of these constituencies, the vote share of the Congress increased by 7 per cent, which was much higher than its overall vote share in the 2023 elections.
Incidentally, in an election where the BJP made almost no gains in vote share, it made major strides in the Vokkaliga region of southern Karnataka. Here, it won an additional constituency and saw an increase of 9.5 percentage points in vote share. This is clearly at the cost of the JD(S), which lost an equal amount of vote share in Vokkaliga-dominated constituencies (where all three parties fielded candidates from the Vokkaliga community).
This could be due to a number of factors indicating the growing presence of the BJP in southern Karnataka, where it has traditionally been weak. For one, many sitting JD(S) MLAs and party leaders have joined the BJP in the last four years. Second, the BJP’s intense campaign focused on southern Karnataka – including a massive rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Mandya to kick off the Karnataka elections – may have had some impact.
The JD(S)’s loss of vote share in these seats should largely be disappointing for the Vokkaliga-led party.
Vote share gain/loss compared to 2018 where BJP, Congress fielded candidates from same caste
* Constituencies where all the candidates of the three major parties belong to the Vokkaliga community.
rebels and defectors
The BJP reacted to the growing antiwar wave by denying party tickets to sitting MLAs and fielding fresh faces in their place who could stand in front of their constituencies with a clean slate. This strategy had achieved spectacular success in the recent Gujarat elections; And before that in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP faced an anti-incumbency wave to inch closer to a majority.
The BJP denied tickets to 21 sitting MLAs, while replacing many ticket-seekers with novices.
In only 103 seats – less than half of the state’s 224 constituencies – from 2018, BJP candidates were given tickets in 2023. In contrast, the Congress largely went with those who lost the elections in 2018.
The results of 2023 show that the BJP was in a Catch-22 situation. The BJP suffered the biggest loss of seats and a significant decline in vote share in constituencies with sitting MLAs or repeat candidates. They were swept away by the anti-incumbency wave. However, the MLAs who were denied party tickets either switched to the Congress or stood as independents, leading to a loss of seats and votes to the BJP.
Ironically, the 19 defectors from the Congress or the JD(S) – defectors also included Congress ticket aspirants who were denied Congress party candidature) did well – owing to the popularity of the individual candidates. BJP got six seats.
Comparison of BJP’s strategy between 2018 and 2023
* Sitting MLAs who were denied party tickets; # Includes Congress or JD(S) candidates from 2018 who shifted to BJP (for example, Mahesh Kumathalli who shifted from Congress to BJP after Laxman Savadi, who shifted from BJP to Congress) ticket was given from Athani); ^ Other constituencies include veteran BJP leaders standing for election (such as R. Ashok from Kanakapura or V. Somanna from Varuna).
Constituencies with new BJP candidates fared better, but the gains were too small to negate the overall effect of the anti-incumbency wave. The strategy of bringing in fresh faces raised the flag of rebellion, further eating into the BJP’s votes and increasing its chances of winning or retaining a seat.
A case in point is Puttur where Arun Kumar Puthila, a hardline BJP worker, contested as an independent after he and his supporters were upset with the “new face” chosen by the BJP. He got over 60,000 votes, twice that of the BJP, and in this fraternal battle, the Congress emerged victorious.
Such an effect was observed in nine constituencies where the margin of victory of the opposition was less than the votes polled by the rebel candidates of the BJP.
Gali Janardhana Reddy, a controversial mining baron and former BJP minister, formed the Kalyana State Pragati Paksha ahead of the 2023 elections. While his party won just one constituency, it ensured the BJP’s defeat in three other constituencies in which two BJP MLAs are Reddy’s brothers.