On Saturday, the results of the high-voltage assembly state elections in Karnataka were announced. The Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 135 seats—well past the majority mark—to form a government in the state. The BJP came a distant second with 66 seats, while the JD(S) was third with 19 seats in the 224-seat Legislative Assembly.
Congress registered an emphatic victory in the Karnataka assembly polls, perhaps the first one in months where the party does not depend on regional allies to form a government in the state. While the election campaign witnessed dangerous levels of polarisation, with the opposition parties raking up the issue of hijab as well as the Congress party promising to ban the Hindu activist group, Bajrang Dal, it is worth analysing how polarisation helped Congress to consolidate Muslim voters and divide Hindu votes to emerge as victorious in the assembly polls.
For instance, Kameez Fatima from the Indian National Congress won from the Gulbarga North constituency, a Muslim-dominated region, with over 52 per cent of the total voters being Muslims, as per voter analysis conducted by Chanakya. Fatima, an ardent advocate of the hijab, secured over 45 per cent of the overall votes, triumphantly winning the Gulbarga North seat.
In 2018 too, Fatima won the Gulbarga North seat, polling about 43 per cent of votes as compared to 45 per cent this year. However, interestingly, the BJP candidate had in 2018 polled 39.3 per cent of votes, while this year, the number increased by 4 percentage points.
This demolishes the myth peddled by Congress supporters and Islamists that Fatima’s victory is the rejection of the hijab ban by the people of Karnataka. In fact, the increase in Fatima’s vote share this year may indicate a possibility of Muslim consolidation at work, but the corresponding increase in the BJP candidate’s vote share in her constituency reveals that for a large section of the population in Gulbarga North, hijab ban in schools and educational institutes may not be a poll issue which had informed their voting preference.
Bhatkal, a constituency with a sizeable Muslim population (25 per cent), elected Congress’ Mankal Vaidya with 57 per cent of the total votes polled. The BJP’s Sunil Naik came in second with approximately 39 per cent vote share.
In Bidar, another district with a considerable Muslim population (30 per cent), INC’s Rahim Khan polled the maximum votes followed by JDS’ Suryakanth Nagamarpalli and BJP’s Ishwar Singh Thakur.
While constituencies with significant Muslim populations largely elected Congress leaders to power, a large number of Hindu-majority constituencies did not vote for BJP candidates. For example, BC Nagesh, the Karnataka Education Minister lost the seat to Congress’ K Shadakshari from Tiptur, an assembly constituency with a staggering 91 per cent of Hindu majority.
In the 2018 assembly elections, Nagesh polled 40 per cent of the total votes polled then as compared to 35 per cent in this year’s election, reflecting that he has lost vote share to the Congress candidate, which means that either Nagesh’s supporters switched over or Congress supporters came out in huge numbers to support their candidate.
The above examples and the analysis of the electoral results hint that Muslims rallied behind the Congress party, possibly to secure their religious interests, and voted en masse for the candidates fielded by the grand old party. However, by contrast, the Hindus voted largely based on individual loyalties and local issues, with religion being the least of the concerns, as witnessed by the lack of reverse mobilisation to counter Muslim consolidation and the division of its votes among Congress, JDS, and the BJP.
While the Muslim community called behind Congress, it is pertinent to also note that BJP faced no serious loss in vote share in 2023 compared to 2018. In 2023, BJP managed to secure 36% of the total votes polled whereas Congress raked in a staggering 42.9%. JDS got 13.3%.
In 2018, BJP raked in 36.22% with 104 seats, Congress won 38.61% with 78 seats and JDS won 18.36% with 37 seats.
While BJP has managed to retain its vote share, it has lost 38 seats and JDS lost about 5% of the vote and 17 seats. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that the entire vote share dip of JDS shifted to Congress and BJP’s loss in seats (38 seats) including JDS’ seats (17) has entirely shifted to Congress.
When we talk about Muslim consolidation in favour of the Congress party, it is also pertinent to note that before the Karnataka Assembly Elections, SDPI had clearly stated their intention of campaigning for the Congress in the Karnataka elections. Besides Muslim consolidation, it is now becoming apparent that Vokkaliga and Lingayat votes shifted en masse to Congress, thus dividing Hindu votes. While Congress projected a Vokkaliga face, DK Shivakumar as their CM candidate, BS Yediyurappa, a strong Lingayat face of the BJP announced his retirement from politics. It is also being speculated that Congress could have secretly revived the promise of giving Lingayats separate religious status, however, these are mere speculations.
It therefore seems evident that while the Muslim community consolidated behind Congress, a part of Lingayat and Vokkaliga votes also consolidated behind Congress eventhough BJP managed to hold on to its traditional vote base with perhaps some shift in their favour, making up for the loss in Vokkaliga and Lingayat votes.
