Karnataka by election is one of the most significant by poll election in recent days. The fate of incumbent government was hanging on fine balance as ruling party- BJP , had to win at least seven out of fifteen seats in order to maintain its maturity. On the other hand, Congress and JDS were eyeing for a return considering all the fifteen seats were previously held by them. Karnataka BJP strong man and current chief minister BS Yeddyurappa led the battle from the front as it was a do or die battle for this septuagenarian leader, knowing that this might be the last term for him as chief minister. Going against the advice of many state and central leaders, he fielded thirteen rebels , whose resignation and subsequent disqualification brought down Congress-JDS government, led by Mr.Kumaraswamy.

There are many takeaways from this result , and this election has the potential to redefine Indian Politics . Going forward, opposition parties need to have a strong narrative with agenda and actionable items, not blind BJP hatred. Forming a coalition government only based on anti BJP sentiment would not going to work. Many experts believed that giving tickets to rebel MLAs would backfire for BJP. However, BJP’s victory in 12 out of 15 seats proved that not only people wanted a stable government, but they also wanted a party at the helm of affair, with an agenda. There was no denial of the fact that legislators who resigned from their post, were no saints, and their resignation were motivated by the promises of ministerial births in the cabinet and other benefits. That is why many political pundits expected people to reject them when they switched their party and asked for the re-election. However, that did not happen as apparently people were more perturbed by the high-jacking of their mandate  by Congress-JDS, than the political maneuver of fifteen legislatures .

If you look at the original election result, people’s mandate was for a BJP led government, where BJP agonizingly fell short of seven assembly seats from absolute majority. To stop BJP from coming to power, two parties with different political agendas – Congress and JDS , joined hands and formed the government.  Such was the desperation of the Congress party to keep BJP out of power, they agreed to join the coalition as junior partner and allowed Mr. Kumaraswamy from JDS to lead the government, leader of a party, which was the distant third in the election. Apparently, that did not go well with voters and on the very first occasion, they voted for a stable BJP government.

The incident should be an eye-opener for opposition parties and an opportunity for them to go back to the drawing board and change their strategies going forward.

Similarly, in the recently concluded assembly election in Maharashtra, the strange coalition of Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP were formed to keep BJP, largest party in the assembly , out of the power . Not only this sends out a message of betrayal to the voters, who voted for a BJP -Shiv Sena government, but also exposes the power hungry faces of opposition parties, stops at nothing in order to grab ministerial berths.

Now the biggest question is, was Karnataka by election an exception or can we expect to witness similar trends in states like Maharashtra in near future, where alliances were formed based on a single agenda- to keep BJP out of power. If the trend of Karnataka is repeated in Maharashtra in near future, then our opposition parties need to reorganize themselves and look for a counter narrative , rather than opposing BJP blindly, simply because THAT DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE

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