- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Indian National Congress was set to form a government in the southern Indian state of Karnataka after results of the May 10 assembly elections showed it was well ahead of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which produced a miserable performance.
The grand-old party was ahead in 137 seats in the 224-member assembly while the BJP was ahead in only 64 at the time of writing this report. The Janata Dal (Secular) was ahead in only 20 seats while others were leading in four. A party or alliance needed to win 113 seats to form a government in Karnataka.
When India Weekly asked Dr Sandeep Shastri, vice chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University in Bhopal in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, national coordinator of Lokniti Network and one of India’s renowned psephologists, whether the result was something surprising or expected, he said, “I have been maintaining that it would be a clear mandate and in the last week had maintained that the Congress was ahead.”
But Dr Shastri did not feel that the results of this election will have any bearing on next year’s general elections.
“This was a result on state issues. 2024 Lok Sabha is a different political canvas,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that the Congress had won the 2013 assembly elections in Karnataka but the following year, the BJP came to power in New Delhi with a massive majority under the leadership of Modi.
India Today also asked Dr Shastri what went wrong for the BJP in this election and whether the Congress managed in surviving what many considered could be a same-side goal with its alleged plan to ban the Hindu right-wing outfit Bajrang Dal. To that, he said, the BJP put too much focus on the centre (federal) and not on local issues.
On the Bajrang Dal controversy, he said it did lead to a Muslim consolidation in favour of the Congress and that there was a saturation of the majority vote on the issue of religion for the BJP the last time.
It has also been reported that the Congress’s work is not over even after winning the election as speculation is rife as to who would become the next chief minister since it has some heavyweight leaders in former chief minister Siddaramaiah and the party’s current state president DK Shivakumar.
Dr Shastri conceded that there could be a tussle over the next chief minister in the Congress but he also said that it could be amicably resolved with foresight and compromises.
