Recently, the Karnataka bypolls results were announced, in which the BJP has absolutely demolished its opponents winning 12 out of 15 seats that went to polls. The biggest loser of BJP’s clean sweep is JD(S) which drew a blank during the bypolls. It seems that after these bypolls the JD(S) is done and dusted. What is particularly a matter of concern for the Deve Gowda led JD(S) is the fact that BJP has made inroads into the Vokkaliga stronghold districts of Mandya and Chikkaballapura. JD(S) has drawn a blank in the Old Mysore region despite having a strong electoral base in the said region.
A key take-away of the bypoll results is the absolute decimation of the JD(S), and its revival from here seems like an uphill task. However, JD(S) doesn’t have anyone to blame for its downfall, but itself. The party made a wrong electoral choice after the legislative assembly polls last year, betraying the electoral mandate. The people of Karnataka had clearly voted in favour of a BJP government, but the party fell just short of majority. The electoral mandate was completely against the Congress and had clearly ousted the Siddaramaiah government. At that time the JD(S) ought to have aligned with the BJP in order to uphold the electoral mandate. It would have been beneficial for the JD(S) also.
Had the Deve Gowda led JD(S) aligned with the BJP, it would have definitely held the Deputy CM post and some key portfolios too, a fair deal for a party that had won just 37 seats in a 224-member Assembly. Probably, an alliance with the BJP could have also led the BJP and JD(S) contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls together in a seat sharing arrangement. Therefore, the JD(S) would have been able to tap on Modi government’s popularity just like JD(U) in Bihar or Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. This way the Deve Gowda led party could have won more seats than the solitary seat that it won by contesting the parliamentary polls in coalition with the Congress. With time, it would have acquired greater bargaining power and would have been able to ask for a greater share of seats when contesting in coalition with the BJP.
However, the JD(S) seems to have dug its own grave by falling to the temptation of getting the CM post by joining hands with the Congress. The immediate fallout of this alliance was that the JD(S) lost its core voter base- the Vokkaligas. The Vokkaligas are the second largest community in Karnataka after the Lingayats, this shows their political significance. The Vokkaligas is primarily an agrarian community who bore the greatest share of brunt of the populist and nightmarish policies under the Siddaramaiah government. It is also said that the Siddaramaiah government had singled out Vokkaligas and discriminated against them. The senior Vokkaliga officers in the state were posted at insignificant posts inviting resentment from the entire community and its wrath during the elections.
What further exacerbated their anger against the Congress was the celebration of Tipu Jayanti by the Siddaramaiah government. Vokkaligas were one of the communities that had borne the brunt of the despotic ruler, and celebration of Tipu Jayanti obviously did not go down well with the community.
Not just Vokkaligas, JD(S) also lost the support of Kodavas. It must be reminded that in Kodagu district, the Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, whose thousands of men and women were seized and held captive during Tipu’s occupation were subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam. On the 13th of December 1785, Tipu Sultan conspired with General Lally (his French counterpart) at Devattparamb located on banks of the river Kaveri. He sent a message to Kodavas inviting them for negotiations unarmed with his army lurking in the forest, what then followed was a massive carnage where he butchered about 70,000 Kodavas and captured 90,000. It is said that following the bloodbath, the river Kaveri ran red from the blood oozing from the dead for 12 days. The ghoulish barbarity of Tipu Sultan has been chronicled in the widely acclaimed works of Mark Wilks, Lewis Rice, and Mir Kirmani. The spiteful elimination of indigenous Kodavas is tantamount to genocide pitting him with the likes of Hitler who also worked on similar lines.
H.D. Kumaraswamy saw a wonderful opportunity and tapped into this potential vote bank during the 2018 Karnataka Assembly polls. This group of Vokkaligas residing in Bangalore placed all their hopes on ‘Kumaranna’. They were hopeful that Kumaraswamy will form the government and throw Siddaramaiah as well as Congress out of power. They did not know that their Kumaranna had planned to use them as a political tool and then back-stab them with their enemy after the results were announced. The Vokkaligas had voted for JD(S) and even BJP where the JD(S) was not strong enough. They had clearly voted against the Congress, but the Vokkaligas were in for a rude shock when Kumaraswamy joined hands with the Congress itself.
The bypoll results have proved that the JD(S) has lost its core voter base in the form of Vokkaligas. Losing its core voter base is catastrophic for any regional satrap. While the BJP and the Congress have loyal vote banks, it is the regional parties, especially small regional parties like the JD(S) that must cling to their core voter base in order to remain politically relevant. However, much to its own disadvantage, the JD(S) has ended up disenchanting its core voter base itself. The Deve Gowda led party has lost favour with the Vokkaligas, its core voter base and that might have just sealed its fate.