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In the aftermath of the Karnataka BJP’s significant defeat in the recent assembly elections, the party has decided to reassess its strategy and return to grassroots efforts to rejuvenate and restore morale and confidence among its cadre and voters. This involves visiting the homes of party workers and voters across the state.
Commencing on June 21, all office bearers of the Karnataka BJP, including former and current MLAs and MPs, will embark on a five-day programme where they will visit 50 lakh homes throughout the state.
N Ravi Kumar, Karnataka BJP spokesperson, stated, “Mane Mane BJP (meaning BJP in every house) will have BJP leaders visiting every home of our party workers, to reignite confidence and motivate them to work harder for the party’s success.”
In the recent assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party was defeated by the Congress, securing only 65 seats compared to the latter’s 135 out of the total 224 constituencies.
‘Homecoming’
Ravi Kumar explained that senior BJP leaders will visit every home down to the last village in Karnataka in six or seven groups.
“The leaders will go to all districts and hold a karyakarta samavesha (party workers’ meeting) in every district and reach out to 50 lakh homes regarding our achievements and work done by our previous BJP government as well as highlight what has been done under the able governance of our PM Modiji,” he said.
As the countdown to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 begins, the party has resolved to embark on a door-to-door campaign across the state. Senior party leaders will visit the homes of BJP karyakartas between June 25 and 30 to discuss, deliberate, and derive a new winning strategy.
“This massive outreach programme will help in creating a favourable atmosphere for the upcoming parliamentary elections. We will identify 1,000 to 2,000 important people in every district and the party plans to sit down with them to understand what went wrong for the BJP in the district and what course correction could be done for the future,” Ravi Kumar added.
New blueprint
Based on the feedback and insights, the party will come up with a new blueprint that will work as a winning formula for the BJP in Karnataka, insiders told News18.
The delegations will also take feedback on which of the programmes that were implemented by the BJP did not strike the right chord and led to the party’s drubbing, explained another senior leader.
Party functionaries will emphasise the importance of highlighting the achievements and initiatives of the central government rather than solely relying on what was achieved under the previous BJP-led state government, said a leader on condition of anonymity.
Senior BJP leaders in a recent core committee meeting admitted that three major issues led to the party’s electoral loss — internal reservation, the Congress’s ‘guarantee card’, and issues like hijab, halal, and Tipu boomeranged and led to their drubbing.
The previous Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government’s recommendation to the Centre to implement internal reservation or reclassification of the 17% reservation for Scheduled Castes among sub-sects of Dalits led to the division of SC votes, party leaders told News18.
“The guarantee card by the Congress gave them a good head start and despite our party (BJP) being in power, we were unable to effectively convince people of what we achieved through our pro-people programmes. The decision on hijab and halal hurt the Muslim community which consolidated and voted against the BJP,” said Ravi Kumar.
Grappling with internal divisions
The Karnataka BJP continues to struggle with internal divisions and the party’s leadership is grappling with the challenge of motivating the cadres to regroup, re-energise, and rework their strategy to ensure a solid victory in the upcoming general elections. Karnataka in the 2019 elections sent 25 BJP MPs to the Lok Sabha out of the 28 seats reserved for the southern state.
Sources within the BJP suggest that the delay in conducting the internal party meeting indicated that there was insufficient seriousness in understanding the reasons behind the defeat of 54 MLAs, including 12 ministers.
The BJP had fielded 72 young and fresh candidates but many of them faced defeats and as many as 45 of them lost their deposits in the elections.
Party sources also say that after the drubbing that the BJP faced in the assembly elections, the morale is not just down but the feedback from workers has been that there is growing discontent against their MPs in certain regions like Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Karnataka, and Central Karnataka which could hurt prospects in 2024.
Apart from this, the party has also been struggling with finalising picks for five major posts: leader of the opposition and chief whips in the legislative assembly and legislative council, as well as the new state president. Present president Nalin Kumar Kateel’s term had been extended keeping the state elections in mind, but the poor performance of the party has forced the senior leadership to think of a name that could revive the BJP in Karnataka.
“The central leadership is quite upset and is yet to have a detailed discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah after the election results. The delay is also due to the constant blame game between certain factions within the party on who should take the responsibility for the loss,” revealed a senior party leader.
While a core committee meeting was hurriedly called on June 8, there are still some major decisions that the BJP needs to make, even though it has been close to a month since the new Congress government has taken the reins of the state.
“If the BJP decides to make a Vokkaliga the state president, to balance the caste matrix, a Lingayat will have to be made the leader of opposition. The majority opinion has been that Bommai must be made the LoP,” explained S A Hemanth, a Bengaluru-based political analyst. “If in the assembly, the LoP is a Lingayat, then in the legislative council, the BJP will have to give the post of leader of opposition to a backward class leader.”
News18 has learnt that three names— former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, and Hubballi-Dharwad West MLA Arvind Bellad — are front runners for the post of the leader of opposition in the legislative assembly.
Leaders upset
The growing discontent within the Karnataka BJP has already begun to manifest openly during the nomination process for candidates for the Lok Sabha polls likely in April-May next year.
Statements made by former chief minister and BJP MP from Bengaluru North DV Sadananda Gowda and national general secretary CT Ravi have further caused a setback for the party. Ravi had alleged that internal politics and compromises with rival parties led to the BJP’s defeat in the assembly polls.
“Compromise politics of some leaders also caused us problems. If there was no compromise politics, we would have done well and come back for a second term,” Ravi said. The Vokkaliga leader and former MLA himself faced a backlash from the Lingayat community in Chikkamagaluru, which blamed him for the ousting of BS Yediyurappa as chief minister in 2019.
Ravi also highlighted that the BJP failed to respond to the Congress’s allegations effectively and counter them with development programmes of the “double engine” government which was in place.
“How many times did we ask (Bommai government) to table the Arkavathy case report? Had we immediately acted on the irregularities related to solar power, then this situation would not have arisen,” he said pointing out how Siddarmaaiah and DK Shivakumar could have been put in the dock.
DV Sadananda Gowda has also accused party insiders of plotting to deny tickets to MPs in the 2024 elections. A visibly hurt Gowda alleged that there is a hidden campaign targeting at least 13 out of the total of 25 BJP MPs, stating they have failed as parliamentarians and have not worked for the benefit of the state. He also called for intervention from state and national leaders of the party to address the confusion arising from these allegations.
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