BJP's Agastya Yatra... Cyber city turns saffron

As the results piled in on May 25, the Congress did not show even a hint of defiance. Instead they made a few familiar noises about "communal forces" and gave away with a whimper. It's the symptom of a party that has been beaten to pulp.

The events of the last few weeks have resulted in a paradigm shift in Indian politics. After twenty eight years of existence, the BJP has made it across the Vindhyas into the south, thereby finally becoming a true national party. What is most laudable is that this success was achieved the hard, honest way; through building an organization over decades, leading farmers' agitations, building and facilitating communities and in the final knockout punch, bringing forth a charismatic leader for popular opinion to coalesce around. The BJP had a good wind in its sails. No wonder the millionaires, the mining barons of Karnataka, jumped aboard. The BJP ate into JD(S) support in South Karnataka and translated its groundswell of urban support into a majority of seats from Bangalore. The party kept local anti-incumbency down to a minimum in coastal Karnataka and made the most of the Mumbai Karnataka region. Under BSY's leadership, the party had a lock on the Lingayat vote, but throughout the campaign, it remained watchful so as to not seriously alienate the powerful Vokkaligas, projecting BSY as a transformational rather than a caste leader.

As opposed to the BJP that had needed a final boost to make it across the finish line in Karnataka, the JD(S), or more precisely, Gowda & Sons, had needed one final act of treachery so dark so as to be marred forever. Throughout the course of the campaign, Gowda and his ken had shamelessly peddled the idea that they would win enough seats to hold the next government hostage as well. The fair minded people of the state had better judgment than to let the scum have their way. Running for election with a well proclaimed desire to act as spoiler (or "vote katwa", as the derogatory term goes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) does not go down well with the electorate. The same desire doomed Paswan in Bihar a few years ago. And in Karnataka, yet another regional satrap, who leads yet another splinter of the former Janata Dal, has walked into this trap. It usually so happens that the party which walks to a majority does so by absorbing the votes of smaller fringe parties, independents and "others" and not so much from its big rival(s). Instead, in this case, the BJP and in some places, even the Congress, took votes right out of the JD(S)' basket.

What is worse for the JD(S) is that there is now some stigma attached to them. Although the Congress knows that it could have won the election had it had an alliance with JD(S), it steered clear of Gowda's post election offer to form a coalition government. And similarly, the Congress also does not want to extend the UPA to include JD(S) for the coming Lok Sabha elections. As one JD(S) leader candidly admitted; "No one wants to touch us after our rejection by the people".

Of course, there can be no untouchables in politics. Politics, after all, is the art of the possible. BSY obviously does not like the idea of a government supported by 4 independents and is open to obtaining a majority on his own. Given the sense of despair among JD(S) leaders, it would be relatively simple to get 19 of their 28 MLAs to join the winning side. But the BJP, which is basking in the freshness of their southern appeal, something that Kapil Sibal called "the novelty factor", does not want to sully its image by looking like a party of manipulators; at least not until the Lok Sabha elections are over. If the BJP were to split the JD(S) before that, the Congress would have an immediate excuse to ally with the remainder of the party and the electoral arithmetic is such that Congress + Gowda is well nigh enough to sweep the state.

There are several other factors that made the Karnataka election one of a kind. A peculiar feature was the absence of an incumbent government. In some places, the people did turn to local anti-incumbency; but, by and large, they were ready to let the BJP have a go at power. This also explains why the Congress held on to its vote share and even made inroads into some BJP territories in coastal Karnataka. Another factor that must have given all parties the jitters was the reallocation of seats across the state. The shake up of the political map had given a huge advantage to the Congress, which would have had some 86 seats in the new combination, were we to preserve the voting patterns of 2004, instead of the 69 they had in the outgoing assembly. The BJP worked its way out of this hole by expanding its support into Congress dominated Bangalore and helping itself to a vast majority of the reserved seats, where the absence of regional strongmen made the people vote with whoever carried the momentum of the election.

A lively debate can also ensue over whether the BJP could have scaled these heights had it not been betrayed by the JD(S). Had BSY completed a 20 month term in power, the BJP would have had the immediate burden of anti-incumbency. As such, the people would weigh in the BJP rule against Dharam Singh's administration. It is hard to tell whether a squabble ridden coalition government, with BSY pegged back by JD(S), would have found favour with the electorate.

The electoral festival moves up to Central and Northern India where the BJP has to defend. Although the party is placed comfortably in Chhattisgarh and Delhi, it has something to worry about in Rajasthan and much more in Madhya Pradesh. However, it would be all too simplistic to presuppose that anti-incumbency would unseat the BJP in both these states, "as a matter of course". It must be remembered that either of these states is what many would consider a "natural BJP state"; and that the BJP won them back in 2003 by projecting powerful figures who carried the party on their shoulders. In fact, Uma Bharati had finished touring every single one of Madhya Pradesh's 230 constituencies by this time in 2003. And Vasundhara Raje had done the same with her Parivartan Yatra in Rajasthan. In contrast, the Congress is still waiting for its campaign to begin. After two years of straight defeat, the Congress faces the stiff task of whipping its cadre into action in the heartland states.

The pollsters, of course, got it wrong again. But, imagine my surprise, when CNN-IBN, red in the face, claimed an exit poll success rate of above 80% on an average. Evidently, "the country's foremost poll expert", "Prof" Yadav has the unique privilege of being able to write his own performance review. Yet, the 80% figure mystified me, until I remembered how pollsters think. There was this time in Uttarakhand, in 2007, when the exit poll got it wrong in every single part of the state: Garhwal, Kumaon and Maidan, but was lucky enough to come up with the exact reverse of the actual voting pattern. As such, the BJP and Congress were projected as winning the same range of seats; while the BJP won the upper limit of the range, the Congress was pushed to the lower limit. Of course, "Prof" Yadav brazenly claimed victory! And Uttarakhand, a small state with a well established two party system and an obvious cycle of incumbency, is what statisticians would consider the "basic case". To the chagrin of pollsters, the errors in Karnataka got stacked in one direction. It seems that everyone had something to learn from this election.