On Saturday (May 13), the Congress party secured a landslide victory in the 2023 Karnataka elections, bagging 136 of the 224 seats in the State Assembly.
Although early trends suggested that the Janata Dal (Secular) might play the role of a ‘kingmaker’ yet again, their hopes were diminished as the day progressed. The party headed by HD Kumaraswamy has been reduced to a mere 20 seats. The BJP came second in the race, with just 64 seats.
Having said that, the situation was starkly different 5 years ago. In the 2018 Karnataka elections, the saffron party secured the largest number of seats (104). However, it failed to cross the majority mark of 113. The Congress party acted swiftly and joined hands with the JD(S).
At that time, JD(S) had 37 seats to its name while the Congress had secured 80 seats. Out of political opportunism, the two ideologically distinct parties came together to defeat the mandate of the people of Karnataka.
The single-largest party i.e. the BJP had to sit on the Opposition Bench as HD Kumaraswamy was crowned the Chief Minister of the State. Although the Congress party thought of it as a strategy to keep the BJP out of power, its former CM Siddaramaiah did not accept the idea of conceding power to JD(S).
At each step, he and other Congress leaders kept adding to the woes of the coalition so much so that the then Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy broke down while speaking about it during a public meeting in July 2018.
Although it had been less than two months since the coalition then, the JD(S) leader confessed, “All of you are satisfied that your brother has become the CM but I am not satisfied.” A tear-eyed HD Kumaraswamy narrated, “The pain that I feel…I am swallowing my own pain like a Vishakanta (swallowing poison).”
He also felt let down for not being given a clear mandate by the people. But the writing on the wall was crystal clear – The doom of the coalition was inevitable. And almost a year later in July 2019, the Congress-JD(S) alliance lost the trust vote in Karnataka Legislative Assembly.
HD Kumaraswamy does not need to swallow poison anymore
With the end of the ‘unholy alliance’, the BJP regained power in the State and continued for the remainder of its term. HD Kumaraswamy also claimed to have lost the goodwill and support of the people by joining hands with the Congress.
In the 2023 Karnataka elections, Congress managed to secure an ‘absolute majority’ on its own and thereby eliminated any prospect of an alliance with the JD(S).
HD Kumaraswamy, who has already conceded that JD(S) is now too small a party to impact the outcome of Karnataka elections, does not need to ‘swallow poison’ anymore by allying with Congress this time.
