Different party in centre & state: Will Karnataka break the trend?

BENGALURU: Karnataka will go to elections for the legislative assembly on May 12, just a day ahead of the completion of the fifth year of Siddaramaiah as chief minister. He took oath as CM in 2013.

The state’s elections have often been a matter of formulaic predictions, as almost invariably, Karnataka has been electing parties that have gone against the national trend. This, almost always, has led to Karnataka having a government directly at odds with the the one at the Centre.

“We have seen this trend right from 1972, when the Congress (I) came to power here and not in the rest of the country,” political analyst Madan Mohan observed. “It continued when the Janata government came to power at the Centre and we again had Congress here. It is the political culture of this state.”


If the Ramakrishna Hegde led Janata government was in power in Karnataka, the Rajiv Gandhi led Congress formed the government at the Centre. The S M Krishna led Congress government in 1999, saw the election of the Vajpayee-led NDA government at the Centre.

“It is largely a coincidence that opposing parties have got elected from the state and the centre,” social scientist Narendar Pani from National Institute of Advanced Studies told ET. “But it is certainly true that the people of Karnataka vote differently for state elections and for the centre. The issues they consider for both polls (even when they are simultaneous) is different, but perhaps, electing the directly opposite party is not intentional,” he said.

This tendency of Karnataka to buck the national trend has always created much speculation on how long it would continue. Even in 2013, when the state gave a simple majority to the Congress, it voted BJP on 17 of the state’s 28 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Political calculations have become frenzied this time as again Lok Sabha polls are due exactly one year after the upcoming assembly elections. “Perhaps this time, Karnataka will vote the same way for the Centre and the state,” Madan Mohan felt. “Chief minister Siddaramaiah was doing well, but he and Congress national president Rahul Gandhi have cooked the party’s goose with the move to divide Lingayats and antagonizing (JDS leader) H D Deve Gowda. I think, perhaps this time, Karnataka will vote BJP in both places.

Pani, however, holds the contrarian view. “I think Karnataka will continue to vote different in both elections and I think the ruling party (Congress) is doing quite well here,” he said.