It is too soon to write a requiem for the Janata Dal (Secular)’s political survival. The party is remarkably feisty in defending its bastions in the Old Mysuru region and scoring comebacks. But the 2023 Karnataka assembly elections could be different as the JD(S) is losing significant vote share and critical seats to its principal rival, the Congress.
Early trends from the Karnataka Assembly polls suggest the JD(S) could be heading for one of its worst vote shares in an assembly election in Karnataka since 1999. According to the Election Commission’s website at noon, the JD(S) vote share stood at 13.1 per cent, a drop of over five per cent from 2018. However, it still led on 24 seats, down from the 37 it won five years back.
In Ramanagarm near Bengaluru, JD(S) candidate Nikhil Kumaraswamy trailed by 13,000 votes to the Congress candidate, a seat his father, former CM HD Kumaraswamy, won by over 20,000 votes in 2018.
JD(S) chief H D Kumaraswamy was leading by a few thousand votes against BJP’s CP Yogeshwara in the Channapatana seat. The party was trailing the BJP on its sitting seat of Tumkur rural, which it had won by a thin margin in 2018, and on its sitting seats of Gubbi and Sira to the Congress.
Kolar was witnessing a close three-cornered contest, with the JD(S) leading by a small margin, a seat it won by over 40,000 votes in 2018. In Madhugiri, a seat it won by nearly a 20,000 margin in 2018, the JD(S) candidate trailed that of the Congress by 7,000 votes. In Chintamani, which it had won by nearly 5000 votes in 2018, the Congress candidate had secured a significant lead of over 10,000 votes over the JD(S).
In Shravanabelagola, JD(S)’s CN Balakrishna, who had won the seat by 52,000 votes in 2018, was maintaining a thin lead over the Congress candidate. In some of its other sitting JD(S) sitting seats, the JD(S) was leading in the Devanahalli (SC) but trailing by 6,000 votes in Neelamangala (SC). However, the JD(S) was leading in some of its bastions, such as Mandya.
In Melukote, Congress-supported farmer leader Darshan Puttannaiah of the Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha led the JD(S) candidate by a small margin. The JD(S) won the seat in 2018, defeating Puttannaiah by 26,000 votes. It was trailing in Belur and leading in Holenarsipur, where Hardanhalli village, the birthplace of JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda, is situated.
We shall soon know if the JD(S) meets a fate similar to that of its former ally, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections of 2022. However, it is evident that the Congress, which has increased its vote share by nearly five per cent over 2018, has gained at the expense of the JD(S) in several southern Karnataka seats.
When criticised for equating the Bajrang Dal with the Popular Front of India, and promising to ban it, which could lead to a backlash, Congress strategists had maintained that it would consolidate minority votes in its favour, especially on seats where the JD(S) hurt it in 2018. Only a detailed analysis would reveal if that has been the case.
But the current nearly 13 per cent vote share is the JD(S)’s poorest in two decades. The JD(S) vote share in the 1999 assembly polls was 10.42 per cent, which it contested in the aftermath of the collapse of the Janata Dal government after a split in the party. Ramakrishna Hegde-led Janata Dal (United), which allied with the BJP, competed with HD Deve Gowda-headed JD(S) for the party’s support base.
In 2004, the JD(S) recovered lost ground, securing a vote share of nearly 21 per cent, which dropped a tad to 19 per cent in 2008 and increased to 20.2 per cent with 40 seats in 2013. In 2018, the JD(S) won 37 seats with a vote share of 18.3 per cent, retaining its strength in its stronghold of Old Mysuru and picking up seats in other regions.
In the run-up to the 2023 Assembly elections, HD Kumaraswamy had embarked on an ambitious “Pancharatna Yatra” that covered its strongholds. Kanakpura MLA DK Shivakumar, a chief ministerial aspirant and a Vokkaliga, led the Congress campaign in the Old Mysuru region.
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