Taking over as the Karnataka BJP chief just six months before the Lok Sabha elections, BY Vijayendra underwent a political agni-parishka and emerged on the other side with a solid win for the party, adding to its tally at the Centre.
The BJP in Karnataka may have delivered the maximum numbers from the south for the party, but it faced several challenges in achieving the target. The BJP had to work harder to convince voters to repose their faith in Narendra Modi while many had benefited from the ruling Congress guarantees in the state.
“I am happy with the results. I have been telling the cadre that the biggest task for us was to convert Modi ji’s popularity into votes despite the Congress here in Karnataka. Our cadre and voters supported us in a big way, and the results are there for all to see,” said Vijayendra in an exclusive interview to News18.
Karnataka saw the BJP winning 17 out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats. Its ally, the Janata Dal (Secular), won two seats, taking the NDA total to 19. The Congress won nine seats. In the 2019 elections, the BJP had 25 seats and the JDS, Congress, and Independent candidate, Sumalatha Ambareesh, had one each.
“Even Sumalatha would not have won the Mandya seat without the help of the BJP,” said Vijayendra. In this election, the Mandya seat was won by BJP’s NDA alliance partner JDS’s HD Kumaraswamy by a margin of over 2,84,620 votes.
The Karnataka BJP chief, who took over the reins from Nalin Kumar Kateel in November last year, credited the BJP’s performance — the highest tally the party has in southern India — to the efforts of the party cadre and leaders who campaigned across the state.
“The very next day after my appointment, I began traveling across all districts in the state. The cadre morale was very low. I worked with them to encourage and re-ignite the spark in them, and they delivered with all their heart,” Vijayendra said.
The BJP may be happy with the results, but is not thrilled. The loss of seats in the Kalyana Karnataka region has been a cause for concern for the party.
“This is the fruit of Modi’s charisma in Karnataka and the party workers’ sweat and toil that we have this win. The state has reposed people’s faith in Modi ji’s leadership as well as the BJP. It certainly was a big target for me, and the results are there for all to see. We could have won three to four more seats. We lost out by a thin margin in Gulbarga, Davangere, and Koppal. We will now analyse why we lost out in Kalyana Karnataka,” the Karnataka BJP chief said.
Vijayendra said the people came out in large numbers and voted in favour of Modi and the BJP despite challenges typical to Karnataka. The Congress is in power in the state and won the elections based on the promise of delivering five guarantees — Gruha Lakshmi, Gruha Jyoti, Anna Bhagya, Yuva Shakti, and Shakti. It campaigned on how these same guarantees would be replicated across the country if the INDIA bloc was voted to power.
“It is very important to understand how much harder the cadre had to work on the ground to counter the guarantees that the Congress promised and repose faith in the BJP, which had not done very well in the 2023 Assembly polls in Karnataka,” said the BJP state chief. The saffron party had won just 66 out of 224 seats, and the Congress had won 135 seats and came to power.
“The Congress in government in Karnataka released Rs 10,000 just three days before the elections under the Gruha Lakshmi scheme to the people of Karnataka. The money that was not released for over three months was suddenly released as arrears. But the people saw through it in other parts of the state and trusted the BJP,” he said, adding that the move by the Congress had an impact on its vote share and wins in the Kalyana Karnataka region.
The biggest upset for the Congress was the loss of the Bengaluru Rural seat to the BJP. The region, considered a fortress of the DK brothers — Shivakumar and Suresh — was breached when the NDA candidate, Dr CN Manjunath, won by a record margin of 268,094 votes, trouncing three-time Congress MP DK Suresh.
The BJP and JDS alliance paid off; both parties transferred their voter support to each other, and both parties stood to gain. The win in Old Mysore region seats like Mandya, Bengaluru Rural, and Tumkur, known as the Vokkaliga heartland, was seen as the impact of the alliance between the two parties. In these seats, the victory margin of the winning candidates was over 1 lakh, and in the case of Bengaluru Rural, it was over 2 lakh votes, clearly indicating that the decision to strike the alliance was a success.
Did the sexual abuse charges against Prajwal Revanna affect the chances of the BJP? “The results are out already. It is up to you to assess. There were many factors, and it is quite natural that those reasons showed up during the elections,” Vijayendra said.
One of the biggest gambles that the BJP took was replacing nine sitting MPs with fresh faces. These parliamentarians had won more than three to six times in a row, but were replaced. In Dakshin Kannada, Nalin Kumar Kateel, a three-time MP and former BJP state chief, was asked to step aside, and Captain Brijesh Chowta was fielded in his place. Ananth Kumar Hegde was replaced by former speaker of the Karnataka Assembly Vishweshwar Kageri. Kageri won with the highest margin in the state (3,37,428 votes).
The BJP also fielded Dr CN Manjunath, the son-in-law of former prime minister and JDS patriarch HD Deve Gowda, against DK Suresh, a three-time MP. Manjunath won with a handsome victory margin of 2,68,077 votes. Another major change of face was seen in Mysore, where sitting MP Prathap Simha was replaced by the scion of the royal Wadiyar family, Yaduveer KC Wadiyar. Wadiyar won by a margin of over 139,262 votes.
“The decision to make these changes was taken by the central leadership. I gave my prompt inputs when asked. We are happy that people have voted in favour of Wadiyar and Kageri. The party has no tolerance towards leaders who do not follow discipline. Hegde did not even attend the PM’s event in Uttara Kannada. This is not taken lightly,” the state BJP chief said.
“Even when it came to Eswarappa, his move was unnecessary, and the people and the party taught him a lesson. He got just 30,000 votes,” said Vijayendra.
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