The Karnataka Congress recently released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. 9 Congress MPs have been re-nominated by the grand old party. It has declared candidates for 18 seats out of the 20 seats on which it is going to contest in Karnataka. The party has not yet declared its candidates for Bengaluru South and Dharwad Lok Sabha seats. As per Congress sources, the Rahul Gandhi led party is waiting for the BJP to announce its candidate from the Bengaluru South Parliamentary constituency before making a decision about its own candidate.
Pollster, Dr. Sachin Reddy who had predicted the Karnataka assembly election results last year in a highly accurate manner has now suggested that the Congress might have lost the plot as far as the candidate selection is concerned and that the BJP is set to gain in a big way in the upcoming parliamentary polls. The pollster had predicted that the BJP would win 103 seats, the Congress 79 and the JD (S) 40 seats. His poll prediction had turned out to be almost perfect and the final results manifested a nearly identical pattern.
Final updated numbers for Karnataka Assembly Polls:
(Change since 2013)Final consolidated numbers
Total 224 seats
BJP 103(+63)
INC 79 (-43)
JDS 40(0)
Oth 2(-20)(I’m calling it a hung assembly with BJP as SLP. Massive downfall of INC.)
RT
— Dr Sachin Reddy (@snsachinnandu) May 11, 2018
Now, Dr. Reddy has opined that five of the nine Congress MPs who have been re-nominated are highly vulnerable. According to him, the following five re-nominated Congress MPs are highly vulnerable:
Chikodi- Prakash Hukkeri
Raichur- BV Naik
Chitradurga- Chandrappa
Chikkaballapura- Moily
Kolar- KH Muniyappa
He has also stated that Kharge from Gulbarga, Dhruvanarayan from Chamarajanagar and Ugrappa from Bellary also face tough opponents. He described Bengaluru rural as the only safe seat for Congress. Dr. Reddy has also suggested that the Congress candidates from Belgaum, Bagalkot and Haveri are not likely to make much of a difference.
Karnataka LS 2019 projections as things stand today
Total 28
BJP 18(+1)
Con 5(-4)
JDS 2(0)
Toss-up 3BJP is likely to make gains in the state despite the alliance between Congress and JDS and the alliance government in the state
PS I will keep updating the table every week pic.twitter.com/eqSZ2qLhwT
— Dr Sachin Reddy (@snsachinnandu) March 24, 2019
Talking about South Canara, Congress has nominated Youth Congress president, Mithun Rai. The pollster has stated that he believes this might have been a good choice under usual circumstances but the candidate is immaterial here as a defeat for Congress is certain. He added that if one takes a look at the larger picture there are only two good choices, viz, Bidar and Devanagere. However, it has been marred by several poor choices including unpopular sitting legislators. It must be noted that Dr. Sachin Reddy has admitted that most of the sitting Congress MPs are senior leaders, but he has also opined that this re-nominating them was a poor move on the part of the grand old party.
The pollster has predicted that out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state, BJP is set to win from 18 seats, JD (S) 2 and the Congress 5. He has predicted a toss-up in three seats. However, if the political atmosphere is in the favour of the BJP, the party can be expected to perform well in the seats which seem to have been treated as unpredictable by the psephologist.
If we go by the views of Dr. Sachin Reddy, the BJP is all set to register a major gain in the state of Karnataka and the Congress might lose out in a big way. This is some really good news for the BJP in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.