New Delhi: Now that the Karnataka assembly elections have been announced, the three primary political fronts in the fray – the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, and Janata Dal (Secular)-Bahujan Samaj Party combine – are all set for what looks like a bitter contest. The campaign has already had a controversial kickstart as the BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya tweeted the date of polls even before the Election Commission of India (EC) announced it. While Malviya clarified that he got the information from a television channel, the opposition leaders latched on to the tweet, many among them putting the onus on the EC to prove its independence. Nonetheless, the largest southern state, that goes to polls on May 12, has thrown up various issues on which political parties will fight each other. Despite an eventful tenure of the current chief minister, Siddaramaiah, the Congress faces a tough battle against a resurgent BJP and a spirited JD(S). With every party grappling with its strengths and weaknesses, observers will have multiple things to look out for.Siddaramaiah vs BJPSiddaramaiah, a strong regional leader with great mass appeal, has managed to shrewdly realign caste groupings in his favour, something which the BJP successfully did in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, the BJP, through a mix of its Hindutva communal rhetoric and advocacy of a ‘market-driven development model’, has been trying to diffuse Siddaramaiah’s electoral formula. How much of the BJP’s strategy will work in its favour is something one will have to wait and watch but that the largest national party will face one of its toughest face-offs with the Congress is undeniable. Ever since Siddaramaiah was expelled from JD(S) in 2005 following his dissent against the elevation of party supremo H.D. Deve Gowda’s son, H.D. Kumaraswamy, he has assiduously tried to create a notional voting block called the AHINDA, comprising minorities, backward communities, and Dalits, by addressing many of their problems in his tenure. To counter this, BJP worked amongst the dominant Lingayats, said to anywhere between 13-14% of the state’s population, and voiced their interests under the leadership of community leader and and BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, B.S. Yeddyurappa.At the other end, the JD(S) is said to be holding on to its traditional base of Vokkaligas, another dominant section of population, in many regions. AHINDA as an united block has destabilised the erstwhile political equations, earlier dominated by the powerful Lingayats and Vokkaligas. While trying to create this group, Siddaramaiah, a Kuruba leader (Kurubas make up around 7-9% of the state’s population), has also ensured that the less-prosperous sections among Lingayats and Vokkaligas also get the benefits of welfare measures he initiated for a range of unprivileged caste groups. Although much of his welfare measures will weigh little in terms of a structural overhaul, Siddaramaiah, nevertheless, smartly allocated the state revenue to welfare measures without pushing the state into a deficit. The chief minister is also banking on the popularity of Anna Bhagya, Ksheera Bhagya schemes in which rice and milk are distributed for free in the public distribution system and initiatives like Indira canteens for subsidised food for poor. Over the last two years, he has also attempted to consolidate different Dalit communities by focussing attention on equitable distribution of state benefits to all groups. Now with his government’s historic decision to grant a separate religion status to the Lingayat community and declaring it among minorities, he has clearly caught the BJP off-guard. Giving political legitimacy to the Lingayat community’s age-old demand may prove to be a political gamble eventually but the chief minister has clearly hit at the BJP’s core vote base. Not surprisingly, the BJP sees this radical step as one that divides the Hindu society. Amit Shah, BJP’s national president, in a clever dig at Siddaramaiah called him “Ahindu”. However, the BJP does not have a clear retort to Siddaramaiah’s shrewd intervention. While it says that his step may be divisive, it also knows that its chief ministerial candidate, Yeddyurappa, has been a signatory to Lingayats’ demand, when it was raised in 2013. Further, the open infighting between Yeddyurappa and former BJP deputy chief minister from 2012 to 2013, K.S. Eshwarappa, has plagued the party so much that it has been unable to put up an united show. Regional equationsWhatever be the results, Congress at present appears to be the only party that has a pan-Karnataka presence. In northern Karnataka – broadly divided into Bombay Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka – a stiff battle between Congress and BJP is in order. The north-western region of Karnataka, which was previously a part of Bombay presidency, has seen the BJP stirring up an aggressive Hindutva campaign, and most likely, the elections will see a polarised campaign in this region. In Hyderabad Karnataka, BJP’s Hindutva campaign has much less traction despite the presence of a substantial Muslim population and the issue of governance will reign supreme here. But in both the regions, Lingayats play a huge role in swinging elections. The community has a concentrated presence in districts like Bagalkot, Bidar, Belagavi, Ballari, Vijayapura, Davanagere, Dharwad, Kalaburagi, Haveri, Gadag, and Koppal. Then, there is south Karnataka, comprising the old Mysore region, that includes Bengaluru, and coastal Karnataka. Coastal regions of Karnataka, which is populated by a large number of affluent Muslims and Christians, is the most communalised space of the state. This region – comprising Uttara and Dakshin Kannada, Udupi and two hilly districts, Coorg and Shimoga – has seen many communal killings over the last few years. Critics of BJP call the area as the “Hindutva laboratory”. Over the past few years, parties like Social Democratic Party of India, the political wing of controversial Muslim group, Popular Front of India, has increased its presence and has emerged as one of the biggest oppositional force to the BJP. However, electorally it has not found much success. The Congress, which won a good number of seats in 2013 assembly polls, is likely to lose some seats to BJP, which has apparently managed to consolidate backward Hindu classes like Billavas and other communities like the Bunts in the region. The old Mysore region is primarily dominated by the land-holding Vokkaligas, estimated to be around 11% of the state’s population. Here, the contest should be a bipolar fight between the JD(S) and the Congress. Although Vokkaligas are spread all over South Karnataka, they are dominant in seven districts – Mandya, Hassan, Ramanagara, Tumkur, Kolar, Chikballapur, and Bengaluru Rural. This region has more than 30 seats and the JD(S) wins its maximum seats here. Congress is banking on its AHINDA formula to crack this JD(S) stronghold. The BJP has a marginal presence and is banking on Congress’ defeat at the hands of the Deve Gowda-led party to form the government. To beat the Congress, BJP will need to consolidate its urban stronghold. Bengaluru, itself, has 28 constituencies out of which the saffron party has been winning more than half of it in the past few elections. Siddaramaiah has come a long way in the last decade. First, he created a notional caste block to his favour, second, he emerged as an anti-corruption crusader by highlighting the alleged links between Yeddyurappa and the mining mafia in 2013 (Yeddyurappa has been exonerated of all charges) and then he quelled factions against him within the Congress. At present, he is the strongest regional leader that the Congress has, so much so that a senior Bengaluru-based journalist put it this way. “Congress needs Siddaramaiah more than he needs the Congress.”And he has asserted his stature. The central leadership of the Congress has given him a free hand to organise the campaign. The high command of his party wanted to apparently field Sam Pitroda and Janardan Dwiwedi from Karnataka in the recently-held Rajya Sabha polls. But Siddaramaiah put his foot down and insisted that only Kannadigas will contest from the state. For the three seats that Congress sent to the upper house, Siddaramaiah chose a Muslim, a Dalit, and a Vokkaliga. At the same time, he has consistently been building a sub-nationalist Kannadiga identity to take on the BJP’s Hindutva campaign. He recently released a Karnataka state flag, supported an anti-Hindi movement and simultaneously asserted that his Kannadiga identity does not contradict with the overarching identity as an Indian citizen.Regional-national clash A combination of these sharp political moves by Siddaramaiah has left the BJP without any particular agenda of its own except Hindutva, which may work in certain regions, and saffron party’s advocacy of “market-driven development” which has an appeal only among a section of urban, service-class population. Thus, while Amit Shah remains confident of a BJP victory in his recent interviews, his party faces great challenges on ground. Siddaramaiah has focussed his attention to keep his government stable as opposed to previous state governments which saw many chief ministers changing during their tenures. The 1972 to 1977 Congress government under the leadership of D. Devaraj Urs was the only one which last completed its full term. Congress’s S.M. Krishna government came close to finishing its term but Krishna called for an early election, months before his tenure had to end. Thus, since 1977, Siddaramaiah’s government is the only one which will complete its full term. Stability of the government, therefore, is an important factor which has not let anti-incumbency sentiment against Siddaramaiah rise to significant proportions. BJP tasted its first success in south India in 2007, when it formed the government in Karnataka. But that was when JD(S) unceremoniously ditched the BJP in the middle of the tenure. The JD(S)-BJP alliance had mutually agreed that Kumaraswamy would occupy chief minister’s chair for the first half of the tenure and then hand it over to the BJP’s Yeddyurappa. However, JD (S) withdrew its support after Kumaraswamy finished his two and a half years’ time as chief minister. In the election that was held after this, BJP rode on a sympathy wave to form the government. However, things do not stand the way it was in 2007. Much will depend now on the distribution of tickets. Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, senior assistant editor of Frontline magazine, told The Wire, “Although Lingayats and Vokkaligas form less than 25% of the state’s population, their number in the legislative assembly has always been disproportionate. One will have to see how both these parties represent various communities in the elections. All the talk of AHINDA or ‘development’ will not matter much if historically- underrepresented communities do not get their due.” On 15 May, one will know which party emerges at the top. If the Congress wins, Siddaramaiah’s government will be the only one to be voted back to power since 1985. BJP will try hard not to let the the chief minister buck this trend. The Congress in Karnataka represents the regional power in Karnataka while the BJP is stopping at nothing to turn it into national-level election under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This regional-national clash will define the assembly election in Karnataka.