New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would lose 17 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats it holds in Karnataka if the general elections were to be held tomorrow and people voted the same way as in the 2023 assembly polls, extrapolated data shows.
ThePrint calculated the number of votes various parties may get in the Lok Sabha polls by adding up the votes their candidates got in all the assembly constituencies falling under each Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 25 out of 28 seats in Karnataka, while the Congress, the JD(S) and an Independent won the remaining three.
But in this scenario, the BJP would be reduced to eight MPs, the Congress’s tally would go up to 18 and that of the Janata Dal (Secular) to two.
Extrapolated data shows that the BJP would lose seats currently held by several prominent leaders, including Union ministers Bhagwanth Khuba (Bidar) and A. Narayanaswamy (Chitradurga), as well as Mysore MP Pratap Simha.
It must, however, be noted that people’s voting preferences in assembly and Lok Sabha polls are seldom the same in Karnataka. Data from the Election Commission has shown that in each Lok Sabha election from 2009 onwards, the BJP has improved its vote share from the preceding Karnataka assembly polls.
Political analyst Chambi Puranik, a former political science professor at the University of Mysore, said that agendas of national elections don’t mix with state elections in Karnataka.
“Karnataka always votes differently for the state and the Lok Sabha elections. In Lok Sabha elections, voters of Karnataka will see (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, his international image, and other developmental things from the Centre. Even in rural parts, Modi is an important factor. They don’t like confrontational federalism, they prefer cooperative federalism,” Puranik told ThePrint.
But according to Karnataka-based political analyst Narendar Pani, voting patterns will change a lot next year. “It will depend a lot on if the Congress can present an alternative (central) leadership. If there is a credible face on the other (Opposition) side, a lot might change.”
However, he added, “Without a credible face, assembly elections will not translate into anything. The Parliament vote is vote for the national party, candidates don’t matter as much, as opposed to the assembly elections.”
BJP losses
Firebrand Hindutva MP Pratap Simha would lose his seat of Mysore to the Congress, the extrapolated data shows. His victory margin of more than 1.3 lakh votes in 2019 would turn into a losing margin of over 2.3 lakh votes. While Simha secured a total of 6.8 lakh votes last time, the BJP would be reduced to 4.2 lakh this time.
Similarly, A. Narayanaswamy had won his Lok Sabha seat of Chitradurga by a margin of 80,000 votes in 2019. But this time, the BJP would lose to a Congress candidate by nearly 3 lakh votes, securing 4.2 lakh votes against the latter’s 7.2 lakh votes.
The Congress would also wrest the Bagalkot seat, which the BJP’s P.C. Gaddigoudar has held since 2004 and won by over 1.6 lakh votes in 2019. The Congress would secure a total of 6.1 lakh votes whereas the BJP would be reduced to 5.5 lakh.
In 2019, the BJP’s S. Muniswamy — securing 7 lakh votes — unseated the Congress from Kolar, which it had held for three decades since 1989. In this scenario, the BJP would lose the seat by a margin of over 3.5 lakh votes, being reduced to 1.9 lakh votes. The Congress would get 5.8 lakh votes, and the JD(S) 4.7 lakh votes.
A Vajpayee-era Union minister, V. Srinivas Prasad (Chamarajanagar) of the BJP, had won his seat by a mere 1,800 votes in 2019. This time, the party would be up for a major loss of over 3 lakh votes. According to the extrapolated data, the Congress would receive 7,49,177 votes and the BJP would get 4,37,138 votes.
The BJP would add no new seats to its kitty, managing to retain just eight. These, the data shows, include those currently held by Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad), Union MoS Shobha Karandlaje (Udupi Chikmagalur), Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya, state BJP chief Nalinkumar Kateel (Dakshina Kannada), former Union ministers D.V. Sadananda Gowda (Bangalore North) and Anantkumar Hegde (Uttara Kannada).
The other two seats the party would retain would be Shimoga and Belgaum, currently held by former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s son B.Y. Raghavendra and Mangal Suresh Angadi respectively.
Gains for others
The Congress would retain the sole seat it currently holds in the state, Bangalore Rural, which is held by Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar’s brother, D.K. Suresh.
The party would also win Gulbarga — the former seat of its president, Mallikarjun Kharge — by a big margin. Kharge had lost the seat in 2019 by over 95,000 votes. However, in the assembly elections this month, the Congress bagged a total of 1.8 lakh votes more than the BJP in the eight segments that make up the Gulbarga constituency.
The JD(S) would hold on to the Deve Gowda family bastion of Hassan, currently represented by the former PM’s grandson, Prajwal Revanna.
If the assembly trends were to hold in the Lok Sabha elections, H.D. Deve Gowda would lose the Tumkur seat yet again if he were to contest.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)