Karnataka to see a hung Assembly

MANDATE 2004/ Deve Gowda emerges as key man

Karnataka is heading for a hung Assembly with the seats tally split three-ways, between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Janata Dal (Secular) and the outgoing ruling Congress, in that order.

The voters played their cards really close to their chest as most of the opinion and exit polls had given Congress the edge. BJP is set to capture 84 seats in the Assembly, Janata Dal (Secular) 75 and Congress 65.

The BJP has prospered in the Mumbai-Karnataka border and the coastal region, the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) in the southern old Mysore region and the Congress in the Hyderabad-Karnataka border region.

The Congress held on to the backward vote with the big exception of a Vokkaliga revolt against it. It also did well among the Muslims and Scheduled Castes.

The BJP, on the other hand, relied heavily on the Lingayat votes and was unable to make much headway among the backward castes. The beneficiary of all this was the Janata Dal (Secular), which was able to field quite a few good candidates, especially in the north.

During the day, the fortunes of the Congress fell from needing the support of the Janata Dal (Secular) to form a government to trailing it.

Deve Gowda may well stake his claim to be the next chief minister, turning from 'king-maker' to 'aspiring king'. He had said if C Rajagopalachari could become Madras chief minister after being India's Governor-General, he could also become Karnataka chief minister after being the prime minister.

Though the BJP is ahead of the rest, it is unlikely to cross the halfway mark in the 224-member House on its own and will have to seek outside support to form a government.

Though the party has made major inroads into Karnataka, it may not be able to cross the halfway mark by itself. Also, the Janata Dal (United), an ally of the BJP, has also performed badly, making the task harder for the BJP.

Several reasons are being cited for the Congress's poor electoral performance despite giving the state a reasonably good administration. One is simply the anti-incumbency attitude of the electorate in recent times.

What has made things worse for the Congress is successive years of drought. It has been faulted for poor drought management and several ministers, who have been in charge of districts have performed very poorly.

Consequently, a big majority of ministers have lost. Also, the state government's failure to save Nagappa from the clutches of forest brigand Veerappan resulted in the division of Lingayat votes.

In a way, the outgoing Chief Minister, S M Krishna, is in the same boat as Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. Both are accused of being capital city-centric and information technology savvy, neglecting the drought-affected countryside in the process.

Among the prominent winners in the Assembly elections are SM Krishna from Chamarajpet in Bangalore district, Siddaramiah of the Janata Dal (Secular) in Mysore, MP Prakash of the Janata Dal (Secular) in Hadagali and Deve Gowda's son H D Kumaraswamy in Ramnagar.

After submitting his resignation to state governor T N Chaturvedi at the Raj Bhavan, Krishna told mediapersons that he personally took the responsibility for the defeat.

"I accept the defeat of my party in all humility and take the responsibility for the verdict against my government. I also take the onus for calling an early elections and being the main campaigner of the party for the joint elections," Krishna said.

Terming it as a total rejection of his party and government by the people, Krishna, however, invited secular forces to "come together" to form the government, thereby seeking support from Janata Dal (Secular). Deve Gowda preferred to remain silent until the final results were announced.

The BJP yesterday said it would seek the support of the Deve Gowda to form the next government in Karnataka.

"That's the only way, what else we have to do," D H Shankaramurthy, leader of the Opposition in the state legislative council, told reporters here.

He said the BJP would open a channel of discussion with the JD-S and try to persuade it to support the party to form the government, but hastened to add that they have not yet discussed the issue.

BJP leaders, including Arun Jaitley, who is slated to arrive here, would discuss the matter tonight or tomorrow and chalk out a strategy.

Asked if the BJP would support a JD-S government, Shankaramurthy said a coalition government works well when a party with lesser number of seats supports the one with more number of seats.

Shankaramurthy said he did not visualise the JD-S joining hands with the Congress simply because electoral support and vote base of the two parties were the same, while that of the BJP and JD-S, "it's almost different".

When pointed out that the JD-S had said prior to elections that it would never join forces with the BJP, he said there was nothing wrong in a political party to take certain stands but in the post-election scenario, one had to respond to ground realities.

He hoped the JD-S would respond to the new situation "" the fractured verdict. People's mandate was against the Congress, he said.