Bharatiya Janata Party, Karnataka

Bharatiya Janata Party, Karnataka (or BJP Karnataka) is a state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka. The headquarters is located in Malleshwaram, Bangalore. The party appointed Nalin Kumar Kateel as the president of the BJP Karnataka, until 2023 after B. S. Yediyurappa took oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka for the fourth time. Till date there has been 3 chief Ministers who has served Karnataka from the party.

Bharatiya Janata Party, Karnataka
PresidentNalin Kumar Kateel
General SecretaryArun Kumar
Parliamentary ChairpersonB. S. Yediyurappa
HeadquartersBJP Bhawan, 11th Cross, Temple Street, Malleshwaram, Bangalore-560003, Karnataka
Youth wingBharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Karnataka
Women's wingBJP Mahila Morcha, Karnataka
Ideology
Colours     Saffron
AllianceNational Democratic Alliance
Seats in Lok Sabha
25 / 28
Seats in Rajya Sabha
5 / 13
Seats in Karnataka Legislative Assembly
117 / 224
Seats in Karnataka Legislative Council
27 / 75
Website
karnataka.bjp.org

Electoral history

BJP contested 110 seats in the January 1983 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, winning 18 seats and obtained 7.9% of the votes cast across the state.[1][2] Out of its 110 candidates, 71 lost their deposits.[1] Along with the Andhra Pradesh legislative election there same year, this marked the first major performance of the party in southern India.[1] Nine out of the 18 BJP legislators came from the coastal districts.[3] The influence of BJP in Karnataka was marked by its inability to mobilize support in rural areas, where the Janata Dal leader Ramakrishna Hegde and Abdul Nazir Sab (Hegde's Rural Development Minister) had built a strong network of local Janata Dal leaders through the panchayat system.[3] After the 1983 election the BJP offered some outside support to the Hedge government.[3]

The party suffered a set-back in the 1985 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, only 2 of its 115 candidates were elected.[1] The party obtained 3.7% of the state-wide vote and 100 of its candidates lost their deposits.[1]

The 1980s was characterized by internal strife in the BJP Karnataka unit, as the followers of Ananth Kumar and V. Dhananjay Kumar combatted each other.[4] Ananth Kumar was the secretary of the Karnataka BJP unit 1987–1988.[5] In 1988, trying to overcome the split, B. S. Yediyurappa was chosen as the consensus candidate for the presidency of the BJP Karnataka state unit.[4] BJP contested 119 seats in the 1989 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, winning four seats and obtaining 4.13% of the votes cast across the state.[6]

BJP obtained 28.8% of the votes in Karnataka in the 1991 Indian general election.[7] This result marked a sharp increase from the 2.5% of the votes that the party had received in the 1989 Indian general election in Karnataka.[8] This time BJP had contested all 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state, winning four.[9] The growth of BJP vote in Karnataka was partially due to the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign and the nationalist discourse of the party.[9]

BJP fielded 223 candidates in the 1994 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election.[6] Ahead of the election the party state unit published a 41-page manifesto, seeking to portray a pragmatic and populist approach of the party with a focus on socio-economic issues rather than communalist discourse.[10] After the 1994 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, BJP held the role as Leader of Opposition in the assembly for a brief period.[7] The electoral result had an important symbolic meaning for the BJP, who had begun to see Karnataka as its 'gateway' into south India.[8]

By the late 1990s, Karnataka was the sole state in southern India where BJP wasn't a marginal political phenomenon.[10][11] During this period, the anti-reservation stance of BJP in response to the Mandal Commission had attracted support among higher castes in Karnataka, rather than Hindutva nationalism per se.[10] The 1999 split in the Janata Dal offered the BJP the possibility to do inroads among Lingayat voters.[3] However, as of the late 1990s the BJP Karnataka state organization remained weak, with the strength of the party concentrated in urban pockets and a few rural pockets (Coorg and the two coastal districts).[7] In the 1998 Lok Sabha parliamentary election, BJP increased its number of seats in Karnataka from six to 13.[12][13] BJP had contested the election in coalition with Lok Shakti, through which BJP had contested 18 seats and Lok Shakti 10 seats.[14][13] With Lok Shakti's Hegde campaigning for the BJP, the party was somewhat able to portray a more moderate image and tone down its Hindutva profile.[13]

Just before the 1999 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, the BJP national leadership forced its Karnataka branch into an alliance with the then governing Janata Dal (United).[7][15] Thus the party could not benefit from the anti-incumbency wave against the Janata Dal cabinet.[7] The tie-up with the Janata Dal (United) was unpopular among BJP workers in the state.[16] Following the 1999 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election the party obtained the Leader of Opposition role again.[7]

The more significant breakthrough of BJP as a major actor in Karnataka state politics came in 2004.[7] In the 2004 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, the party won 71 out of 224 seats.[3] Whilst BJP remained organizationally weak in rural Karnataka, it managed to increase its share of vote by attracting Lingayat voters from parts of northern Karnataka.[7][3] In the 2004 Lok Sabha parliamentary election, BJP won 18 seats from Karnataka.[3] BJP had become the largest party in the state assembly, but could not form a government as the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Congress Party formed a coalition.[7] The JD(S)-Congress coalition, however, suffered internal strife and in 2006 H.D. Deve Gowda struck a deal with BJP which stipulated that the post of Chief Minister would be given to BJP after a 20-month period.[3] In 2007, when the 20 months had passed, H.D. Dewe Gowda opted to retain the position, sparking outcry and a wave of sympathy towards BJP and B. S. Yediyurappa.[3][17]

The strength of BJP in Karnataka state politics increased significantly between October 2007 and April 2009.[3] Ahead of the 2008 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, BJP had emerged as the sole viable alternative to the Janata Dal (S) and the Congress Party in Karnataka state politics.[16] Following the formation of the BJP state government in 2008, there was a wave of attacks on Christian churches in Karnataka.[18] The National Commission for Minorities denounced the BJP state governments for inaction in preventing the attacks.[18] Under pressure from the central government, the BJP state government arrested a number of Shri Ram Sena leaders.[18]

In the 2013 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, the BJP fell to third place in the state behind the Indian National Congress and Janata Dal (Secular). While the INC won a majority in the Legislative Assembly with 122 seats, the BJP fell to 40 seats.

The decision of the Congress state government to grant minority status to the Lingayats prompted the RSS (a move seen by RSS as "an attempt to divide the Hindus") to take a more active role in supporting the BJP in the 2018 state elections.[19] RSS brought in senior leaders from across the country for the state election campaign.[19] Reportedly some 50,000 RSS cadres campaigned for BJP, as well as some 3,000 Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal cadres.[19] RSS mobilization for BJP in the electoral campaign was particularly strong in the coastal districts (a stronghold of RSS, but also an area with sizable Christian and Muslim populations).[19]

Support base

For many years, the BJP support base was mainly Brahmin, but in later years expanded to include more Lingayats (as well as some Vokkaligas).[6][16] Most of the party state leadership is either Lingayat or Brahmin.[16] By the 2000s, the party had sought support among other communities, such as the OBCs, Dalits and Vokkaligas, utilizing communal issues as mobilizing factor (albeit with limited success).[16]

Leadership

S. Mallikarjunaiah was the Vice President of the BJP Karnataka state unit between 1980 and 1986.[20] He again held the post as BJP Karnataka state unit Vice President 1990–1991.[20]

Nalin Kumar Kateel was appointed as the president of the Karnataka state unit of BJP on August 20, 2019.[21] Reportedly the outgoing president B. S. Yediyurappa had favoured Arvind Limbavali for the post, but the National General Secretary (Organisation) of the party B.L. Santosh had favoured Kateel due to his credentials as a RSS loyalist.[21] Soon after taking over as state unit president Kateel named Bhanuprakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana as Vice Presidents of the BJP state unit.[22] The two leaders, seen as part of the 'old guard' of the party, had been ousted from the state leadership in 2016.[22]

List of Presidents
#Name of the PresidentPeriod Duration
01A.K. Subbayya1980-1983 3 years
02B.B. Shivappa1983-1988 5 years
03B.S. Yediyurappa1989-2003 15 years
04Ananth Kumar2003-2004 2 years
05Jagadish Shettar2004-2005 2 years
06D.V. Sadananda Gowda2006-2010 4 years
07K.S. Eshwarappa2010-2012 3 years
08Prahlad Joshi2013-2016 4 years
(03)B.S. Yediyurappa2016-2019 3 years
09Nalin Kumar Kateel2019- incumbent
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References
  1. Pratap Chandra Swain (2001). Bharatiya Janata Party: Profile and Performance. APH Publishing. pp. 194, 199, 207. ISBN 978-81-7648-257-8.
  2. Robert L. Hardgrave (13 March 2019). India Under Pressure: Prospects For Political Stability. Taylor & Francis. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-429-71661-4.
  3. Paul Wallace; Ramashray Roy (5 May 2011). India's 2009 Elections: Coalition Politics, Party Competition and Congress Continuity. SAGE Publications. pp. 270, 272–273, 282. ISBN 978-81-321-0774-3.
  4. Business Standard Political Profiles of Cabals and Kings. Business Standard Books. 2009. p. 188. ISBN 978-81-905735-4-2.
  5. Ravi Bhushan (2003). Reference India: Biographical Notes about Men & Women of Achievement of Today & Tomorrow. Rifacimento International. p. 59.
  6. Harish Ramaswamy (2007). Karnataka Government and Politics. Concept Publishing Company. pp. 241, 254, 260. ISBN 978-81-8069-397-7.
  7. Katharine Adeney; Lawrence Saez (11 April 2007). Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism. Routledge. pp. 92–94. ISBN 978-1-134-23978-8.
  8. Partha Sarathy Ghosh (1 January 1999). BJP and the Evolution of Hindu Nationalism: From Periphery to Centre. Manohar Publishers & Distributors. p. 111. ISBN 978-81-7304-253-9.
  9. Sumantra Bose (16 September 2013). Transforming India. Harvard University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-674-72819-6.
  10. Christophe Jaffrelot (1999). The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s : Strategies of Identity-building, Implantation and Mobilisation (with Special Reference to Central India). Penguin Books India. pp. 439, 444–445, 539, 542. ISBN 978-0-14-024602-5.
  11. Thomas Blom Hansen; Christophe Jaffrelot (4 June 2001). The BJP and the compulsions of politics in India. Oxford University Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-19-565614-5.
  12. Ananth V. Krishna (September 2011). India Since Independence: Making Sense Of Indian Politics. Pearson Education India. p. 409. ISBN 978-81-317-3465-0.
  13. M. L. Ahuja (1998). Electoral Politics and General Elections in India, 1952-1998. Mittal Publications. p. 107. ISBN 978-81-7099-711-5.
  14. University of Madras (2003). Electoral politics and nation building in South Indian states. University of Madras. p. 157.
  15. Wendy Doniger; Martha C. Nussbaum (9 February 2015). Pluralism and Democracy in India: Debating the Hindu Right. Oxford University Press. p. 167. ISBN 978-0-19-938093-0.
  16. Gopal K. Kadekodi; S. M. Ravi Kanbur; Vijayendra Rao (2008). Development in Karnataka: Challenges of Governance, Equity, and Empowerment. Academic Foundation. pp. 48–49, 98. ISBN 978-81-7188-619-7.
  17. Kanta Murali (2 February 2017). Caste, Class and Capital. Cambridge University Press. p. 235. ISBN 978-1-107-15450-6.
  18. Amrita Basu (30 June 2015). Violent Conjunctures in Democratic India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 49, 108. ISBN 978-1-107-08963-1.
  19. Walter Andersen; Shridhar D. Damle (15 June 2019). Messengers of Hindu Nationalism: How the RSS Reshaped India. Hurst. p. 398. ISBN 978-1-78738-288-6.
  20. H. D. Singh (1996). 543 faces of India: guide to 543 parliamentary constituencies. Newmen Publishers. p. 129.
  21. Deccan Herald. Nalin Kumar Kateel new BJP state president
  22. The Hindu. Two old guards back as BJP Karnataka unit vice-presidents
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