Anil Anand
With its back to the wall even as the electioneering is still to pick full steam, BJP once again is backing heavily on its time-tested Modi-factor. A high-steam Narendra Modi blitzkrieg is on its way. Though planned in advance as is the won’t in every election that the party fights Modi-carpet bombing has assumed greater significance in view of desertion by senior leaders threatening to erode BJP’s strong Lingayat base and strong anti-incumbency.
Will the Modi blitzkrieg help BJP retain power?
This is crucial to the party and a real test for Modi if his charisma could work under adverse circumstances to help BJP hold on to power in the only southern state. Though he has already held few rallies before poll announcements in connection with launching some developmental projects, the real show takes off with when he embarks on addressing 25 public rallies in the coming weeks.
Under normal circumstances there is nothing new in Modi’s power-packed election schedule but it is different in Karnataka this time around. More so with the eyes rivetted on 2024 Lok Sabha elections and disorder in the BJP house.
The party top brass is already worried over the exit of top Lingayat community leaders, former state chief minister Jagadish Shettar and ex-deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi. The tremors in the party’s old support base of Lingayats has left the party’s top leadership worried and unhappy.
That’s why efforts on war-footing to woo Lingayats and prevent the community from going into the Congress-fold. As an overture the BJP has fielded 62 Lingayat candidates. This apart the focus would be on highlighting on how the Congress neglected the community and never had a Lingayat as its Chief Minister.
Known for its fortification strategies before any election, the BJP’s central leadership seemed to have grossly miscalculated the emerging scenario in the state. In view of the resultant mess, the is now harping on a fire-fighting strategy which, without any doubt, revolves around the Modi-factor.
Interestingly, with two Lingayat leaders in Shettar and Savadi quitting the party and entering the poll arena as Congress candidates, BJP’s reliance on former Chief Minister and tallest Lingayat leader B S Yediyurappa has increased manifold to regain the lost hold among the community. It is in itself a daunting task as the BJP high command has, ever since he was removed as chief minister, an uneasy relation with him.
Ground reports suggest that even if Yediyurappa goes full-steam, it will be an uphill task for the BJP to expect, as in the past, overwhelming support of the community. Notwithstanding the fact that his son has been fielded by the BJP from seat of his choice, but the circumstances are unfavourable even for him to convince his community to vote for the party. His rumblings with the top leadership and the fact that he has already crossed the threshold of 75-year age bar, as prescribed by BJP’s central leadership, to be eligible for the now defunct ‘Marg Darshak Mandal’, leaves him with no chance either to become chief minister or be given any position of eminence in the state.
Under such a situation Mr Yediyurappa’s appeal to the community is unlikely to cut much ice. It is also a fact that in the past he had single-handedly managed to rally the Lingayat community behind BJP. But subsequent developments seem to have overtaken the past.
Apart from new entrants Shettar and Savadi, Congress also has a prominent community leader M B Patil. This makes Ligayat lobby top-heavy even in the Congress and the community, knowing that Shettar and Savadi might not get any prominent positions in the event of Congress forming the Government could back Patil who has fair chances of at least becoming Deputy Chief Minister.
It is under these circumstances made more intense by corruption charges against the incumbent BJP government, that Modi’s planned blitzkrieg assumes more significance. The party has also marshalled the services of Kannada superstar Kichcha Sudeep who has already started touring the state.
This apart Modi’s super-effort is also backed by a star-studded BJP team led by its president J P Nadda. The entire top brass of the BJP led by Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Yogi Adityanath, Hemanta Biswa Sarma and Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Chief Ministers of UP, Assam and Madhya Pradesh respectively, will be pressed into service as the campaign picked up.
Apart from the rallies already held in connection with official functions, Modi is expected to address 25 rallies. Elaborate programme to hold roadshows and crisscross Karnataka for 20 days is on his agenda.
While the Congress has been able to make dent in BJP’s Lingayat base at least in the matter of weaning the community’s top leaders, the saffron party is also striking back. In order to maintain the caste balance vis-à-vis Congress and Janata Dal (s) of former Prime Minister H D Devegowda, BJP has embarked on a mission to make a dent into their Vokkaliga caste base. Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai had, sensing trouble, harped on his social engineering card with an eye on Vokkaligas. One key factor of this engineering has been fielding of 15 candidates belonging to this community, the same number as the party’s hot favourite Lingayats. This equanimity has been done to send a strong signal to the Vokkaligas and the same time to Lingayatas that the party could look for support elsewhere.
The Lingayatas are crucial to BJP as they have all along constituted as the core of the party’s support base. It has been on this strong foundation that the party built its electoral edifice. The party’s moves at communal polarization have distanced the minority voter from it and the SCs/STs which had in some numbers voted for BJP in the past are not a sure bet.
It will be interesting to see how Modi plays the Lingayat card. As it is he has established personal rapport also by personally visiting the community’s top seers. But will that relationship brook confidence. It is a million-dollar questions.
Even in the case of Shettar and Savadi, the two Lingayat leaders, they would not have either quit BJP or joined Congress without taking the influential quarters in the community into confidence or without their concurrence.
If Modi and other BJP leaders will have to put in hard work to ensure support of a sizable section of the community, the Congress will also have the onerous task to Ligayatas into its fold. Modi’s blitzkrieg will have an important role to play and keenly watched.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
