Despite BJP's Karnataka Rout, The Party Performed Better In Bengaluru, Here's Why

From deploying star campaigners and senior ministers, to covering the ground with cadre outreach, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) campaigned heavily in Karnataka.

Likewise in the state capital Bengaluru, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi held two roadshows over two days of a weekend.

After all the efforts, the Karnataka assembly election verdict came as a shocker to the supporters and karyakartas of the BJP.

However, Bengaluru bucked this trend and in fact the BJP performed even better in the Bengaluru assembly seats than it did in 2018.

There are many reasons which could be attributed for the BJP performance in Bengaluru. Some of these are:

1) Benefitting from a JD(S) implosion

In 2018, the BJP secured a 38.9 per cent vote share in the Bengaluru region. In 2023, in the face of what looks like an anti-incumbency wave, the BJP's voteshare in Bengaluru increased by 6.4 per cent to 45.3.

In 2018, the BJP had won 11 seats in the Bengaluru region but in 2023 this number went up to 16.

In the process, it gained 4 seats from the Congress and 2 from the JD(S) (while losing one to Congress in return).

The Congress too saw an increase in its voteshare in Bengaluru from 39.8 per cent to 41.3.

But it was the JD(S) which saw a phenomenal collapse of its vote share in the city. From 18 per cent in 2018, the JD(S) vote reduced by almost half to 9.9 per cent in 2023.

And unlike the rest of Karnataka where the beneficiary of a JD(S) collapse was the Congress, in Bengaluru it appears to be the BJP.

2) The Modi effect

Even by conservative estimates, the roadshow of PM Modi in the city saw a turnout of a few lakhs.

Besides, Bengaluru is seen as home to a large population of educated, upwardly mobile families. As various surveys over the recent years have shown, this is a demographic more predisposed to support the BJP than others.

It is a possibility that the Modi roadshow galvanised this vote in an unprecedented manner.

3) No strong anti-incumbency effect in Bengaluru?

Of the 11 seats that the BJP won in Bengaluru, it retained 10: Malleshwaram, Mahadevapura (SC), C V Raman Nagar (SC), Bengaluru South, Basavangudi, Bommanahalli, Yelahanka, Rajajinagar, Padmanabhanagar, and Chickpete.

(The only exception was Govindrajnagara, V Somanna's earlier seat).

In an election where many members of the outgoing Cabinet lost from their constituencies, does the BJP holding its numbers in Bengaluru suggest that anti-incumbency effect was at its weakest in the city?

4) Operation Kamala

In seats like Mahalakshmi Layout (K Gopalaiah), Yeshwantpura (S T Somashekar), and Rajarajeshwarinagara (Muniratna), the BJP had managed to get the winners from 2018 to join their camp. While Gopalaiah and Somashekar had joined in 2019, Muniratna came over to the BJP in 2020.

All three candidates added their victories to the BJP tally.

While the scale and nature of the Congress victory in Karnataka will be the topic of much debate and analysis, the BJP's performance in Bengaluru also deserves it study, if only to understand the mind of the urban voter.