Returning to power in Karnataka with an absolute majority after a decade, Congress leadership in the state wants to repeat the feat in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. For two decades in all the Lok Sabha elections held from 2004 till 2019, the Congress tally from Karnataka has never crossed single digit. The party is now on Mission 20 and is working to reach the goal of bagging 20 of the total 28 Lok Sabha seats from Karnataka.
The game of snakes and ladders has begun between the ruling Congress and the opposition parties – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] – to bag the maximum seats in the Lok Sabha polls. While the BJP and the JD(S) are crying foul over attempts of the Congress to open its doors to disgruntled members in both parties, KPCC president and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has stated that his party is like a big ocean. “Just as all rivers join the ocean and the latter accepts water from all rivers, all political members are joining the Congress,” he added, with a rider that the Congress does not guarantee posts and positions to all those who join.
Agriculture Minister N Cheluvaraswamy, tasked with the responsibility of tapping BJP and JD(S) members in Old Mysuru region on August 18, claimed that 15 MLAs from both opposition parties are ready to quit and join the Congress. The first big catch under the Congress ‘Operation Hasta’ (palm in Kannada) was former BJP MLC and defeated JD(S) candidate in the 2023 Assembly polls from Shivamogga, Ayanur Manjunath on August 24. A confidant of former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, his entry is expected to help the Congress in Shivamogga, where the Lok Sabha seat is held by Yediyurappa's son BY Raghavendra.
Speculation is rife that next in the line will be BJP MLAs ST Somashekhar, Arbail Shivaram Hebbar, Byrathi Basavaraj, and N Muniratna, all Congress turncoats, who joined the BJP in 2019 and helped Yediyurappa become the Chief Minister. Though all have debunked the speculations, Congress sources said it's just a matter of time before all fall in line. All supporters of Somashekhar at the grassroots level have joined the Congress and he is only biding his time, they claimed.
Sources said the Congress is yet to identify the Lok Sabha constituencies where it needs to put in a lot of work. “It all depends on how good we will be on the storytelling of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's failures as the BJP is ahead of us in the digital space,” they maintained. With AICC president Mallikarjun M Kharge hailing from Karnataka, winning the maximum number of seats has become a prestige issue for the party.
According to sources in the Congress, if the party has to meet the Mission 20 target, it has to consolidate itself in many districts, from where it used to win the Lok Sabha elections earlier. The last time the Congress could boast of a good performance in the Lok Sabha polls was in 1999 when party leader Sonia Gandhi contested from Ballari and later vacated the seat. The Congress bagged 18 seats, with the BJP winning seven and the JD(U) three seats. The slide down started in 2004 with the BJP winning 18, Congress, eight and JD(S), two. In 2009, BJP secured 19 seats, Congress six and JD(S) three seats. In 2014, the BJP again was in the lead with 17 seats, Congress nine and JD(S) two. The abysmal performance was in 2019 when the BJP walked away with 25 seats, with the Congress, JD(S) and independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh winning one each.
Another reason is that former CM HD Kumaraswamy and his JD(S) party is the common enemy of both Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar. Kumaraswamy has been strident in his attack on alleged corruption to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore in the cash-for-transfers cases. In the 2023 Assembly polls, both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were successful in curtailing the growth of the JD(S) and BJP in the old Mysuru region, which is their home turf.
Of the 57 seats in the region, the Congress won 36, JD(S)14, BJP five seats and others two seats in the May polls as against Congress 17, JD(S) 27, BJP 11 and others two seats in the 2018 Assembly polls. In Mandya where the JD(S) had made a clean sweep of winning all seven Assembly constituencies in 2018, this time it could win one with the Congress bagging five seats and an independent one (with Congress support).
Shivakumar, who is the likely successor to Siddaramaiah, has realised this is the right time for him to emerge as the leader of the Vokkaliga community, dominant in the old Mysuru region, a position now held by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy. There are reports that Congress plans to have a large-scale defection of 13 of the total 19 JD(S) MLAs to avoid attracting provisions of the Anti-Defection Act and bye-polls if the number is less.
Angered by these moves, Kumaraswamy has accused the Congress of trying to mask its failures by poaching MLAs from other parties. A core committee headed by party MLA GT Deve Gowda has been set up to keep the flock together. However, JD(S) MLC SL Bhoje Gowda, a confidant of Kumaraswamy, said, “Defections are a routine in all parties.” He cited the example of Ayanur Manjunath, who went from the Congress to the BJP, became an MLC and came to the JD(S) because he wanted a ticket to contest the 2023 polls.
To taunts from the BJP and former MLA CT Ravi, who has been vocal about the issue, a senior Congress legislator said the BJP resorted to Operation Lotus in 2019 to topple the JD(S)-Congress government. “We poached nine JD(S) MLAs when the party was short of numbers to send former Union minister SM Krishna to the Rajya Sabha in 2006. This was done to strengthen the party and not topple a government. We want to win the maximum number of seats in the Lok Sabha polls and all permutations and combinations will be done,” he added.
The failure of the BJP central leadership to appoint a leader of the opposition in the Legislative Assembly and name a new state unit president even after three months of elections being held, has embarrassed and angered the rank and file in the party. Kumaraswamy has donned the role of the opposition leader. Somashekhar and Hebbar have gone on record that the party failed to address their grievances of grassroots-level workers not cooperating with them. Somashekhar justified his praising Siddaramaiah, saying the latter is the CM of the state and not to a particular party. “When he visits my constituency and development works are needed, it's wrong to curb someone from praising the CM,” he added. A senior BJP functionary admitting moves are on to lure his party legislators said, “We will try our best till the last minute to retain them.”
Meanwhile, things are not hunky dory in the Congress as some of the ruling party MLAs are upset with ministers not being receptive to them. “Except for five to six ministers who are active, the rest are not visible at all. On the day when Chandrayaan-3 moon landing was successful, where was the minister in charge of science and technology?'' a Congress legislator asked. It is learnt that AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala, who will be in Bengaluru this week for the launch of the Gruha Lakshmi scheme by party leader Rahul Gandhi on August 30, is going to hold discussions with the legislators. On the Congress ‘Ghar Wapasi’ efforts, a senior minister said, “At least this has diverted the attention from Kumaraswamy's empty pen drive (the latter had been flashing a pen drive claiming to have evidence of the corruption on transfers).”
Naheed Ataulla is a journalist who has covered Karnataka politics for over two decades, and is a former Political Editor of The Times of India. Views expressed here are the author’s own.