Outlook – July 28, 2019

by Preetha Nair in Delhi,

Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore,

G.C. Shekhar in Chennai

T

he news from across the

Vindhyas so far hasn’t been

heartening to the BJP—except

in Karnataka, where a political

cliffhanger is playing out, close

behind the party’s near-sweep

in Lok Sabha polls. Chairing a

mee ting of the BJP’s key leaders last

month, Union home minister Amit

Shah said the party’s success story

would be complete only when it

conquers the region south of the Vin-

dhyas that has been largely elusive to

the saffron brigade for many years.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka muddle

is brimming with sub-plots, much

of which is of the discordant JD(S)-

Congress coalition’s own making,

though aided by a BJP impatient

to form the government.

Though it is the single largest party

in Karnataka’s assembly, the numbers

needed for the BJP to wrest power

seemed a bit out of reach until July

when, suddenly, 16 ruling coalition

MLAs brought the H.D. Kumara­

swamy government to a precarious

perch. CM Kumaraswamy recently

tweeted the flight manifest of a

charter aircraft as proof that BJP men

had been escorting Congress legis­

lators to Mahara shtra, where rebel

MLAs had been holding out ahead of

the vote of confidence in the

Karnataka assembly.

The BJP’s growth in Karnataka

began much before the Modi­Shah era,

but the recent Lok Sabha results—in

which the party bagged 25 of the 28

seats—were its best ever. Compare

this with the BJP’s overall southern

bjp MARCH

Pushing Pushing

South

India’s ruling party has pulled all stops

in its mission to shed the northern tag by

conquering the lands across the Vindhyas

12 OutlOOk 29 july 2019

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