There's little time before the nation plunges into the Lok Sabha election mode. As Karnataka BJP leaders have headed to the country's capital to discuss the strategy with Amit Shah, MyNation focuses on Karnataka to find out how the recent Assembly elections will impact the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
Bengaluru: The Congress, BJP and the JD(S) are now in the warm-up stage in Karnataka. The parties are prepping up for the grand fight for the 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.
The BJP was just in short of tasting victory during the Assembly election in May, 2018. The Congress and the JD(S) strategically joined hands with the sole intention of keeping the BJP away. The accidental chief minister HD Kumaraswamy has been fighting hard since to keep the coalition intact despite fissures within the two parties.
Will this impact the Lok Sabha election and make it advantage BJP?
Dinesh Gundurao, Karnataka Congress president, claims that fissures are common and both parties need to be flexible to iron out differences. "Half the arguments that crop up between the Congress and the JD(S) are created by the media. We got together post poll during Assembly election. And this Lok Sabha will see us in an alliance pre-poll. BJP is now looking at appeasement politics and that will not work for them," he said.
However, BJP thinks that Karnataka favours Modi when it comes to national politics. "Karnataka always think differently when it comes to national politics. Modi is very strong in Karnataka. Every other party has leaders, who want to become Prime Ministers. The nation is wide. But Karnataka will vote for the welfare of the nation," said Tejaswini Gowda, Karnataka spokesperson, BJP.
While the farm loan waiver promise of the JD(S) remains unfulfilled, allocation of portfolios during the Cabinet expansion and the nominations for boards and corporations have drowned the coalition in troubled waters. Yet, BJP has been finding it hard with its futile attempts at toppling the government using Ramesh Jarkiholi of the Congress as its pawn. BJP's top leader from the state BS Yeddyurappa has also lost a senior/Central leader like Ananth Kumar.
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Tejaswini Gowda said that if BJP had to indulge in operation Lotus, it would have been done much before. "We could have done it easily then. The two parties in the coalition are deliberating blaming BJP to cover up their wrongdoings. Yes, we miss Ananth Kumar, but we will have no problem as far as Lok Sabha is concerned," she said.
Not just the Assembly election, if the recent bypolls in Karnataka were to be kept as a yardstick, Congress has swept to victory in four of the five constituencies with two Assembly and two Parliamentary seats bagged by the Congress leaving one Lok Sabha seat, Shivamogga, for the BJP, Yeddyurappa's fort.
All eyes are on the Parliamentary elections in 2019. BJP opened its account in southern India in 2008, thanks to Lingayat strongman Yeddyurappa. 2018 wasn't victorious for Yeddy. But, will Yeddy tear into Congress that was all set to divide the Lingayat community to ensure BJP walks through the 28 constituencies of Karnataka on the red carpet, all the way to the Parliament?
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