Many of the
pre-polls published so far indicated that the great chunk of the "Lingayat
Vote" is still ambivalent and most likely to be retained by the
BJP though with some amount of marginal erosion towards the Congress.
The BJP
strategically hopes to offset this erosion by targeting the Schedule Tribal (ST)
community to maintain their vote share. So the elevation of Bellary Reddy
Brothers close associate, Sriramulu with projection of him as a Dy CM candidate.
Sriramulu belongs to Valmiki-Nayak community and in addition to STs, the BJP pin
their hopes on him to connect better with Dalits, a community seen to be
annoyed with the BJP.
These electoral calculations
at fast glance may seem a clever damage control exercise but at a deeper
analysis suggest that it is rather simplistic one. The Valmiki-Nayak community
is hardly 6-7% of the population. The Lingayat community 15-17%. The Congress has
a larger footprint among the Valmiki-Nayak community, and even if the BJP
succeeds in expanding their own at their cost, the net gain expected to BJP could
no more be larger than 1% by way of overall vote share. Apart from Valmiki-Nayaks,
the BJP can hardly expect to significantly offset their cumulative expected losses in the
urban, Dalit & Lingayat segments of the electorate.
Most of the
pre-polls concluded that the erosion of the "Lingayat
Vote" is limited and manageable essentially through the analytic prism
of issue of Siddaramiah's decision on recommending separate religious status to
the community. But even if the numbers projected by these pre-polls are
accepted at its face value, what we find is that as an issue, the separate religious
status to the community pales into insignificance the deep rooted feelings of slight
being nursed by the Lingayat community, considered the backbone of the party's
support in the state.
The first grievance
of the Lingayat community is that despite being the backbone of the BJP in the
state, with overwhelming majority of their 17 MPs from their community, the Modi cabinet has not
a single Lingayat Minister. There are presently two Brahmins, a Vokkaliga and a
Scheduled Caste member in the Union Cabinet.
The second is a much
more significant grievance. It is the widely held perception that the BJP do
not want Yedduruppa their leader but want only his votes!
The importance of
Yedduruppa is that he almost single handedly built up the party and brought it to
power. Though the party have leaders such as C.T. Ravi, D.V. Sadananda Gowda,
R. Ashok, K.S. Eshwarappa, Jagadish
Shettar and Ananth Kumar, all lack a mass base and pan Karnataka
acceptability.
Just like the
Congress, the community feels that the BJP High Command does not want strong regional leaders and seek to undermine
them. It is their "Yeddy
Phobia" that forced Yedduruppa to resign after he was named in the Lokayukta Report. Even after
being cleared by the High Court, Yedduruppa found the party failed to reinstall
him as Chief Minister of the state. This forced Yedduruppa to leave BJP and
form his own party the KJP which got one third the votes the BJP got in 2013.
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP successfully wooed Yedurruppa back to the
party wherein the party won 17 out of the state's 28 seats.
What has really
enraged the community is that the BJP trying to cut Yedduruppa to size by
depriving his son a ticket to contest against Siddaramiah's son in Varuna
constituency. If this exclusion was based "no tickets for family policy’
of the BJP it was even understandable. What enraged the community is Janardhana
Reddy’s family and associates managed seven tickets. What perhaps made the
slight even worse is that Amit Shah visited Varuna constituency even when Vijayendra,
Yeddurruppa's son was campaigning and said nothing. So the decision of the High
Command depriving him a seat came as a rude shock.
The demeaning way
BJP treated Yeddyurappa is being interpreted by the Lingayats as an insult to
the entire Lingayat community whose only
Pan-Karnataka leader today is Yeddyurappa. The reaction was instantaneous.
WhatsApp messages passed around amongst Lingayat voters in Varuna that they
should teach BJP a lesson and vote for NOTA. From there to all other parts of
the state. Angry Lingayats are asking
"Is this how you treat a leader who has worked for your party
relentlessly and brought it to power? No, Amit Shah did not build BJP in
Karnataka, Yeddyurappa did. But now the North Indian-dominated BJP top
leadership wants to enjoy the benefits of Yeddyurappa’s sweat by calling the
shots?"
A prominent Congress
Lingayat Minister MB Patil had this to add:
"They have
projected him, but they are dropping his son’s name on one side and the central
minister (Siddeshwara) is dropped on the other side. It is just a game plan and
now the Lingayats have understood. Now, I see the reaction everywhere. They
have come to the conclusion that they will not make him the chief minister.
They are just using him. They will dump him on the age factor. They will say he
is above 75 and they have not made anybody who is above that age the chief
minister. They are going to dump Yeddyurappa. Lingayats are not going to vote
for BJP because of the treatment meted out to Yeddyurappa."
Meanwhile in Old
Mysuru region, the BJP struck up a tacit understanding with the JDS, a party
where Vokkaligas constitute the backbone of their vote base. The Vokkaligas and
Lingayats are traditional caste rivals. The consolidation of Vokkaligas around the
JDS is in turning propelling Lingayats to counter consolidate around the Congress.
If this trend gains more momentum then regions like Hyderabad-Karnataka;
Mumbai-Karnataka and Central-Karnataka the BJP can find themselves practically
routed.
- Saturday, April 28, 2018
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