The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Thursday that elections to the Karnataka state assembly will be held on May 10 and the results declared on May 13.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Thursday that elections to the Karnataka state assembly will be held on May 10 and the results declared on May 13. Here are five charts which explain the nature of contest in detail.
Karnataka is the BJP’s only stronghold in southern India
The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) first formed a government in Karnataka in 2008. Although it had been part of the government earlier, that was as junior partner of the JD(S). While it emerged as the single largest party in the 2018 assembly elections, a post-poll alliance between Congress and Janata Dal Secular or JD (S) kept it out of power until July 2019. But the BJP broke ground in Karnataka much earlier, as evident in a comparison of its vote shares in general elections across five major southern states.
But its 2018 performance was relatively underwhelming
The BJP had a comfortable majority in the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, its 2018 assembly performance, where it fell short of a simple majority by nine MLAs, was, relatively speaking, underwhelming compared to its 2014 and 2019 performance. This suggests a marked difference in the BJP’s state and national election performance in Karnataka. Given the fact that the BJP will also be facing an anti-incumbency headwind this time, the 2023 contest could well be more difficult than the 2018 fight . To be sure, at least until now, the BJP has done well to prevent a repeat of a 2013 like situation when it faced desertions from two of its key leaders, B S Yeddyurappa and B S Sriramulu in the state, leading to a crushing loss.
The Congress is always in striking distance of power in Karnataka
The Congress’s vote share in Karnataka has been close to or above the 35% mark for several decades. In a state where the wining party’s vote share has not crossed the 40% mark since 1999, this means that the Congress is always within striking distance of capturing power in the state. This state-level aggregate hides the fact that at the constituency-level, the contest may not be close when votes of other parties are regionally concentrated. For example, in the 2018 elections, the Congress finished first or second in 190 assembly constituencies (second in 112 ACs). The contest was close in 21 of these 190 ACs, as the victory margin was 2.5% or less in them. It finished first in 16 of these 21 ACs and second in only five. In almost half of the ACs where it finished second, it lost comprehensively, with the winner’s margin being 10% or more.