Mayawati’s BSP, JD-S pact for Karnataka polls; blow to Congress

New Delhi: In its first-ever pre-poll alliance, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party on Thursday announced a pact with Janata Dal (Secular) for the coming Karnataka Assembly polls. The move is seen as a setback for the ruling Congress, which is hoping to retain power in the state, as it will lead to a division of the anti-BJP vote.

The BSP will contest 20 seats spread across 14 districts, Satish Chandra Mishra, BSP joint secretary, and Danish Ali, JD(S) national secretary-general, announced at a joint press conference in New Delhi on Thursday.

The duo announced that H.D. Kumaraswa-my, son of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, will be the chief ministerial candidate for the alliance.

Both Ms Mayawati and Mr Deve Gowda would jointly campaign in the state, they said.

The 20 seats which the BSP will contest are Chamaraj Nagara, Gundlupete and Kolleg-ala (SC), Anekal, Nippa-ni, Chikkodi-Sadalaga and Raibag (SC) Honn-ali, Bidar North, Chitta-pur (SC), Kalaburgi Rural (SC), Vijayanag-ara, Bagalkota City, Karkala, Hubbali-Dhar-wad (East-SC), Byadagi, Shirahatti (SC), Gadag, Babaleshwara and Sullya (SC).

Sources in the JD(S) and a few dalit leaders felt this might end up being a “zero sum game”.

“In the seats that are given to BSP, the JD(S) is not a strong force. Therefore, it is
difficult to say if the JD(S) would really be helpful for the BSP to win those seats. Considering JD(S) voters’ hostility towards dalits in many constituencies in south Karnataka, it would be a challenge for the JD(S) to transfer the Vokkaligas votes to the BSP,” sources said.

A dalit leader felt that after the 2004 Assembly elections, the BSP failed to make a dent into the dalit vote base of the two national parties. “Perhaps in places like Kollegala, where the BSP is strong, it can help the JD(S) to split the community’s votes. Otherwise, considering the voteshare that the BSP got in the 2013 Assembly elections, it would be difficult to say whether it would help the JD(S) in a big way,” the leader added.

Mr Ali said the alliance was “pathbreaking” and would have larger ramifications for Indian politics. It had the potential to “thwart the attempts of two bigger national parties to isolate regional parties”.

“This is the first time that the BSP, under the leadership of Mayawati, is getting into an electoral alliance with us as per our request,” he added.

Karnataka has over 22 per cent Scheduled Caste votes.

Mr Misra said the party had scored well while fighting independently in several constituencies. “We had representation in the Karnataka Assembly in 1999. The BSP has performed well even in states like Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.