Will the dependancy on Central leadership offset perception of anti-incumbency for Karnataka BJP

With the Prime Minister's rallies commencing today, the BJP has been making a heavy push ahead of the May 10 Karnataka Assembly elections.

The question to be asked if the heavy dependancy on the Central leadership will help the party offset the perceptions and the visible anti-incumbency in the state?

OneIndia caught up with Dr. Sandeep Shastri, leading political analyst to discuss the BJP's push in Karnataka through its Central leadership. We also discussed if the party was back to making its heavy Lingayat push in the state.

Karnataka is a state that is known not to vote back a party to power for a second term twice in a row. This would mean that in every election, the anti-incumbency factor is in force.

Dr. Shastri says that the BJP is now heavily dependant on its central leadership. The question is whether this will help offsetting the perceptions and visible anti-incumbency against the ruling BJP in Karnataka. Is the ground too much to cover. What the Central leadership can do is provide a boost to an already existing momentum or the icing on the cake. The cake is tasty due to the icing, but then the icing is of no use without the cake, Dr. Shastri says.

The BJP has seen many ups and downs during its campaign. The party apart from being hit by anti-incumbency is also facing the rebel bug. It had denied tickets to many senior leaders in the party and had projected over 50 new faces in its list of 224 candidates.

The BJP has also been very reliant on the Lingayat vote. The experts say that the party would have to tread carefully and ensure that its Lingayat votes are not eroded. All parties are making a push among all communities to emerge as the winner, but the opinion polls have so far predicted a hung verdict.

The challenge for the BJP, Dr. Shastri says is how the BJP will retain the Lingayat vote. There are challenges while doing so. B S Yediyurappa was the only Lingayat put by any party as the chief ministerial candidate. This meant that the community knew that by voting the BJP, they would get a chief minister from their community, he said.

The question now is that Yediyurappa is not contesting the elections and he is only seeking votes in the name of his party. The Central leadership had indirectly pointed out that Basavaraj Bommai, also from the Lingayat community and a very short tenure and hence he be given another opportunity, Dr. Shastri said.

The question is now what exactly is the optic?

The BJP's worry is how to reassert the Lingayat vote. The BJP's leadership in Karnataka has been appealing to its Central leadership to declare a Lingayat as the CM face. This automatically would result in back-peddling the other caste groups. Eshwarappa is from the backward caste and has not been comfortable with the Lingayats. Hence he made a pitch for C T Ravi who is a Vokkaliga. The big challenge for the BJP would be counter-balancing says, Dr. Sandeep Shastri.