After seven years out of power in Karnataka, the Congress has stormed back into power in the southern state, apparently with a small but clear majority of seats in the 224-member assembly. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party is struggling to escape the ignominy of a third place, running neck and neck with the Janata Dal (Secular) of H D Deve Gowda at about 40 seats each. There are likely to be few consolations for the BJP, even when its vote share is known for certain - the swing against the party is expected to be of the order of 15 per cent of votes cast. The citadel that was supposed to be the BJP's southern stronghold has crumbled.
There are lessons all round from this. The Congress in particular should not be tempted into triumphalism. While it apparently did well in urban areas and kept the party united, it is worth noting that the BJP government in Karnataka was seen as soft on corruption, if not riddled with graft itself, as well as incompetent and rudderless. The comparisons with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance at the Centre are obvious. If Karnataka's voters have so comprehensively turned against a party which delivered such misgovernance, then the UPA should hardly rest secure on its performance in New Delhi. The lessons for the BJP are also stark. It cannot expect that the Congress' negative image will be enough of a counter-weight for the BJP's own problems to allow it to win by default. Nor can it blame its comprehensive defeat on the exit of its former chief minister and most charismatic leader, B S Yeddyurappa. Mr Yeddyurappa's party has won just about half a dozen seats, and its share of the vote is a small fraction of the swing against the BJP.
The BJP's government in Karnataka was not only weak on corruption, especially in relation to iron-ore mining and land use, but also notable for its stifling social conservatism. The party spread outward to the rest of Karnataka from the coastal areas around Mangalore, long a hotbed of sympathy for the BJP's parent organisation, the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The party viewed that as its safe base, even bringing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in to campaign there. However, this is the same area that has witnessed communal polarisation, the campaign of intimidation run by the Sri Ram Sene, and vigilante raids on birthday parties for fear that girls and boys were mixing unsupervised. Not only did Mangalore elect a Muslim of Malayali ethnicity to the assembly, the BJP was virtually wiped out in the area. It should draw the obvious conclusions.
It is time now that Karnataka, grievously wounded by the infighting and incompetence of the previous administration, be given a chance to heal. No part of the state's politics is immune to corruption, but the new government has surely seen the dangers of greed. The Congress must provide stability - which means allowing a popular chief minister, not one imposed from New Delhi - and start paying attention to urban areas, which have been allowed to decay particularly since S M Krishna left office in Bangalore. The BJP's history in Karnataka is young, and the Congress has a chance now to deal the party a blow, through good governance, from which it will never recover. As for the BJP, it should realise that relying on social conservatism and the Congress' unpopularity is not going to deliver it the results it wants. The Congress, on its part, should recognise that it has won on the strength of a vote of no-confidence against the BJP. Its primary task in the next five years should be to build the people's confidence in the party that rules from Bangalore.
