Months of speculation in the political corridors of Karnataka over a possible alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (Secular) have now been set to rest. Last week, leaders of both the parties announced separately that their talks had made headway. This could change the contours of the political landscape in the State in the 2024 general elections.
Though the seat-sharing arrangement for the 28 parliamentary seats is yet to be hammered out, the strategy is to deny the Congress, which is hoping for a good performance in Karnataka to better its national tally, as many seats as possible. The JD(S) is expected to get 4-6 seats in the sharing arrangement.
The proposed tie-up comes after the two parties parted ways on an acrimonious note in 2007, when the JD(S) refused to hand over power to the BJP as part of their alliance pact in the coalition government. During the 2018 Assembly elections, the two were not allies, but the Congress referred to the JD(S) as the “B team” of the BJP given the speculation that there was an internal understanding between the two parties.
In the Assembly polls earlier this year, the BJP and the JD(S) received a drubbing. This has pushed them into an alliance, which is perceived to be ‘mutually beneficial’ for them in the parliamentary polls. This is in contrast to the pre-poll scenario when the BJP, in the hope of making inroads in the Vokkaliga heartland, attacked the JD(S) with Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling it the “Congress’s B team” and Home Minister Amit Shah saying it is a “party of dynasts.”
If the JD(S) was facing an identity crisis after its traditional rival, Congress, returned with good numbers at its cost, the BJP is yet to resolve its leadership issue. Nearly four months since the formation of the Congress government, the party is still to appoint the Leader of the Opposition.
With a reduced vote share in its bastion and a decline in seats from 37 in 2018 to 19 in 2023, the JD(S) has been facing the heat from a stronger Congress, helmed by D.K. Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga leader. Attempts by the Congress to poach legislators of the JD(S), which draws strength from the Vokkaliga voters in the Old Mysore region, threatened the very existence of the regional party. The threat of losing control of the party or even the symbol, like Uddhav Thackeray did in Maharashtra, also loomed large, claim party leaders.
The BJP posted a record performance in 2019, winning 25 out of 28 seats. Besides the influence of Mr. Modi, it had benefited from the confusion between the JD(S) and Congress. A year earlier, the two parties had waged a pitched poll battle in the Old Mysore region for the Assembly elections, but later came together to form a short-lived coalition government. They won one seat each, while the seat in Mandya, the political hotbed, went to the BJP-supported independent Sumalatha Ambareesh.
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But a repeat of its 2019 performance now looks bleak for the BJP given that the Congress is in power and the morale of the ruling dispensation is high after it successfully implemented four of the party’s five pre-poll guarantees.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the JD(S)’s presence in the NDA is expected to yield dividends in 11 seats in the Old Mysore region besides about four districts in the Kalyana Karnataka region. The new alliance aims to stop the Congress from crossing the double-digit mark. JD(S) leaders believe that this alliance is “natural” as both the parties are not competing against each other like the way they do with the Congress.
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However, the alliance has also faced scepticism within the regional party headed by former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who has for a long time opposed the BJP’s ideologies. The fear that the BJP could eat into the JD(S)’s core voter base in the near future, threatening the very existence of the regional outfit, has not been ruled out though JD(S) leaders argue that the immediate threat from the Congress is what needs to be addressed urgently. Some leaders believe that the BJP has already made inroads into the Vokkaliga bastion. Notably, the growth of the BJP cost the JD(S) nearly a dozen seats, as the Congress won the Assembly elections. More rumblings are expected once the seat-sharing arrangement is formalised. The stability of the alliance, leaders believe, hinges on the Lok Sabha results.
