In the 2023 Karnataka Assembly Elections, 18 of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)‘s candidates were turncoats, while the Congress fielded 23 such candidates. A turncoat is an MLA candidate who participated in the previous election as a candidate of another recognised State/national party.
To assess the success of the turncoats, their strike rates were considered. The strike rate is the number of seats won by turncoats as a share of seats contested by turncoats. In the 2023 polls, the Congress achieved a much higher strike rate with their turncoats with 69.6% of them leading in seats, while the BJP’s turncoats had a lower strike rate at 5.6%.
Chart 1 shows the number of BJP candidates who are turncoats, freshers, repeaters and incumbent MLAs in the 2023 elections and their strike rates in the polls
