What explains the Congress’s bitter sweet result in Karnataka Lok Sabha polls

NEW DELHI: The Congress has won nine out of the 28 parliamentary constituencies (PCs) in the state of Karnataka. With this, the Congress has repeated its 2014 tally in the state. Both 2014 and 2024 were Congress’s best-ever performance in the state since 1999 when it won 18 PCs in Karnataka.

While the Congress added eight seats to its 2019 tally, the results are a letdown from the Congress’s massive assembly election victory in May 2023.

What explains the Congress’s bitter-sweet performance in the state?

A sub-regional dynamic and an alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal (Secular) is the answer. Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) classifies Karnataka into six sub-regions -.Bengaluru Karnataka, Bombay Karnataka, Central Karnataka, Coastal Karnataka, Hyderabad Karnataka, and Sothern Karnataka. Bombay and Southern Karnataka are the two biggest sub-regions with seven parliamentary constituencies each. Central and Hyderabad Karnataka have five and four PCs each. Bengaluru Karnataka has three PCs while Coastal Karnataka has two PCs.

The Congress’s best performance has come in the Hyderabad Karnataka sub-region where the Congress has won all four PCs. The rest of the state has given the Congress just five more PCs. Hyderabad Karnataka is the region where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge comes from. The Congress had done very well in this area even in the 2023 assembly elections.

The region-wise performance of the Congress shows a huge departure from its performance in the state assembly elections held just a year ago.

In the 2023 state assembly elections, the Congress got at least 50% of the seat share in each region of the state, except coastal Karnataka.

Even in the regions of Bombay and Central Karnataka, it had a seat share of 66% and 75% respectively. Both these regions are considered as a stronghold of ex-chief minister BS Yediyurappa who comes from the Lingayat community which is a dominant caste in these regions.

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The BJP removed Yediyurappa as the state’s chief minister before the 2023 assembly elections, but made his son, BY Vijayendra the party’s state president after the state results. The Lok Sabha election results show that this has done a lot of damage control for the BJP.

Another factor which might have kept the Congress’s tally down in the state is the BJP’s alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) which might have led to a complete consolidation of the Vokkaliga vote behind the NDA. Region-wise vote share numbers show this clearly as the Congress’s vote share gap with the NDA is the largest in Southern Karnataka.

If the BJP and the JD(S) stay together and ensure a consolidation of Lingayat and Vokkaliga votes, then it could entail a new churn in the state’s politics.