Karnataka elections: Why is BJP now downplaying 'Mission-150'?

Even otherwise, winning 150 seats in Karnataka seems far fetched as most opinion polls have predicted that BJP may win anywhere between 90 - 120 seats.

During the last few months of 2017, the BJP had set an ambitious aim for itself for Karnataka elections and coined phrase called 'Mission-150. It was about winning 150 seats in the Karnataka elections. The party was so upbeat about this ambitious target that every leader spoke about it when talking about elections for 224 seats Karnataka Assembly.

Now that the elections are almost there, we find that 'Mission-150' is not being talked much and even the tweets mentioning it have gone conspicuously missing. The BJP's narrative is now more focused on winning the elections with a 'comfortable majority' rather than making 'Mission-150' a reality.

While the BJP remains confident of winning the southern state with a "comfortable majority", winning 150 seats now looks "Mission Impossible", a Hindustan Times report quoted two BJP leaders in Delhi as saying.

As per that HT report, the reason given by a BJP leader for not harping too about 'Mission-150' is because of what happened after Gujarat elections. The BJP won Gujarat assembly election last year, but the Congress tried to dub it as the saffron party's defeat as it had failed to touch the target that it had claimed it would.

The BJP won 99 out of 182 assembly seats in Gujarat with a vote share of 50% in the assembly election held in December. It had set a target of winning over 150 seats in Gujarat as well.

Immediately after losing the Gujarat elections, the Congress made a series of statements emphasising that BJP had not only missed the target it had set for itself, but also managed to bag less seats than previous elections in the state. The Congress, in fact, said that it was a moral victory for them as they managed to bag more seats in 2017 when compared to 2012.

Even otherwise, winning 150 seats in Karnataka seems far fetched as most opinion polls have predicted that BJP may win anywhere between 90 - 120 seats. In fact most opinion polls have predicted a hung assembly, and only two such polls have predicted outright win for the BJP. So this could also be one of the reasons that has forced the BJP to shove 'Mission-150' under the carpet.