Opinion: A Different "Centre Vs State" Battle In Karnataka

The Karnataka assembly election, less than three months away, promises to be an interesting battle between the national and the local. The BJP is well on its way to projecting the elections as being about its national leadership. Home Minister Amit Shah has virtually taken over the party leadership in Karnataka, spending extended periods of time in the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been at a series of events in Karnataka, from the prestigious Aero India to the inauguration of a renovated railway station in a district headquarters.

In contrast, the Congress is yet to tap extensively into its national leadership. Despite a successful Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi has not addressed any public meetings in the state and is not scheduled to do so in the immediate future. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra did promise Rs 2,000 for homemakers at a public meeting, but that promise has since been presented, along with that of 200 units of free power, as a joint commitment of state leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar.

The third significant player in the state, the Janata Dal (Secular), has, if anything, become even more regional. Most of its activity is focused on its base in the Vokkaliga heartland of southern Karnataka. And in the home district of its founding family - Hassan - it has gone so local that intra-family ticket distribution issues are out in the public domain.

The BJP's strategy is not just a matter of its undeniable faith in the Modi phenomenon. It is also an acknowledgement of the fact that the BJP in Karnataka is not in good health. Amit Shah virtually said as much when he distanced the national leadership from the corruption associated with the present state government, by promising to remove corruption if voted to power.

Nor is this just a view of the national leadership. The state leadership of the BJP has been equally despondent. The BJP has never won a majority in the state. Its governments have been formed either in alliance with the JDS or by pulling MLAs from other parties. If it is to break this trend, it has to make inroads into the Vokkaliga heartland of southern Karnataka. It made a significant move in this direction by drawing in the former Vokkaliga chief minister, SM Krishna. But today, in Krishna's home district of Mandya, things don't look good for the BJP. Indeed, minister after minister in the state's BJP government has refused to take the responsibility of Mandya.

A Modi-led BJP strategy will provide the party the additional advantage of bypassing the state leadership. The repeated visits of the Union Home Minister to different parts of Karnataka will allow him to identify new leaders in each constituency. These leaders can then be brought under the umbrella of a local leader, who would by necessity be dependent on Delhi for survival. There are already rumours that the Bengaluru South MP, Tejaswi Surya, could fit the bill. As a Brahmin he cannot lay claim to any of the politically powerful castes in the state, and he takes great pains to demonstrate his loyalty to the national leadership.

This strategy is, of course, not entirely new. It was initially developed by the Congress when Indira Gandhi, at the height of her power, could put up anyone and make them win. Rajiv Gandhi took this process a step further by not just bypassing, but even insulting, the state leadership. Narasimha Rao institutionalised it through constitutional amendments to the Panchayatraj. The trouble was that the alienation of the state leadership also meant the alienation of castes with a state-wide presence. The Congress is yet to recover from the perceived insult of Lingayat leader Veerendra Patil by Rajiv Gandhi. As decentralization has taken deep roots, local leaders have developed autonomous power. It is this power that allows them to shift parties at will.

Rahul Gandhi's response to the situation, which was developed, in part, by his father, has been to try to rebuild the prominence of the state leadership. The political campaign yatras of the Congress in the state are being led by the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Siddaramaiah, and the state Congress president, DK Shivakumar. The assumption is that they would have a better understanding of conditions on the ground and would be able to build a consensus around the chosen candidate.

Just as the BJP would like to project the coming elections in Karnataka as a Modi-versus-Rahul battle, the Congress would prefer to see it as one between the national and the local. Karnataka's electoral history provides support for both sides of this story. It has in the past been the pocket borough of national leaders, even as it has thrown up a homegrown Prime Minister. It will be interesting to see which narrative emerges stronger in the current electoral battle.

(Narendar Pani is Professor and Dean, School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.