Modi arrives but too late for BJP?

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on a whirlwind tour of the Karnataka capital, Bengaluru, launched several ambitious projects and also hailed the IT and start-up hub of the country for its tremendous achievements in the IT, BT and other hi-tech sectors. The state is just five months away from Assembly elections which will see a new government being ushered in with the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress engaged in a fierce battle for the hearts and minds of the people.

Modi also addressed a public gathering and going by the indications emerging from the BJP camp, this is likely to just the first of a series of meetings which Karnataka will see in the coming months. This is the only state which has seen an upswing in BJP fortunes in the seven decades after Independence with the party getting nowhere in its efforts to build bastions in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Though the saffronists have made some progress in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at the cost of the Congress, it is nowhere near displacing leaders like Jaganmohan Reddy in AP and K. Chandrasekhar Rao in Telangana.

This also means the BJP will not spare any effort to retain Karnataka in its kitty in 2023. The scenario however looks pretty bleak for the saffron camp right now with a leadership line-up which looks anything but impressive after the ageing BS Yediyurappa handed over the mantle to his shishya, Basavaraj Bommai and preferred to fight from the shadows.

Bommai on his part, has not shown any of the fighting abilities required to take on the aggressive Congress led by leader of the opposition Siddaramaiah and KPCC president DK Shivakumar. Nor are there any other promising leaders in the BJP frontline who can take on the opposition and ensure the party crosses the magical 113 mark in the assembly. While it is still early days as far as poll campaigns are concerned, the battle lines are slowly getting drawn and election strategies being planned.

It is more than obvious that the Congress will launch a blitzkrieg against the 40 per cent commission charge made by contractors against the BJP government and also the ineffective manner in which the Bommai administration tackled the damage caused by the widespread rains a month ago. Bengalureans dread recalling those days when the whole city turned into a pool and it remains to be seen how many of the 28 city constituencies the BJP will be able to win this time because of its sloppy show in setting right city infrastructure. In 2018, when the BJP staved off a stiff challenge from the Congress, than the ruling party, to win 100 plus seats, it had BS Yediyurappa on its side leading the charge.

Aided by a series of corruption charges against the Congress government and a more than generous helping hand from the BJP top brass led by Modi, the party could keep the Congress and JD(S) in check and grab power. Yediyurappa is a shadow of his former self and there is no other leader in sight who can take the BJP to an outright victory.

The party also seems to be terribly short of issues to take on the opposition and does not have much to show by way of a report card on its achievements in power. One can be sure that these questions must be troubling the BJP leadership as the state heads to polls. Or is it too late for the saffronists to retrieve the situation after stumbling at every step and hardly able to put up a facade of unity in the past three years in power?