JDS-BJP alliance can split BJP’s Vokkaliga and Lingayat base

Bengaluru: Even while the BJP is planning an alliance with the JDS in the state for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, rumblings among the caste bases of BJP and JDS have started surfacing. Both parties have their bases in Vokkaliga and Lingayat castes and various subcastes including Veerashaivas.

Will this be a political Harakiri for both BJP and JDS? is the question which is now being discussed among the political circles. Political thinkers also feel that it is the end game for the BJP in Karnataka.

The BJP got a big blow in the 2023 assembly elections following Jagadish Shettar parting ways with BJP who is also a big leader of Banajigas -one of the big sub-sect of Lingayats. It is no secret that he had parted with BJP and at the same time, one of the top leaders of Lingayats BS Yeddyurappa was also put down by BJP central leadership in the same timeline.

It is here that the Vokkaliga community increased their strength in the Old Mysuru and central Karnataka and Bengaluru region. As it was not enough even the coastal Vokkaligas had taken back a step, but due to coastal political dynamics on the coast that did not yield the political results the community was expecting to happen.

But on Friday when the BJP and JDS politicos are trying to add a new dimension to their understanding the murmurings and dissent among both Vokkaligas and Lingayats has surfaced like no other time in the last ten years.

Both communities are politically big for Karnataka, they had cooperated with Yeddyurappa and Jagadish Shettar and respected each other. But after the announcement of the trucking with JDS which is basically a Vokkaliga stronghold party.

The Vokkaligas in Old Mysuru and central Karnataka have already started disbelieving the JDS having anything to do with BJP. “One of the top leaders of the BJP R Ashoka has stated that nothing is confirmed now on the truck with JDS, only the top leadership in Delhi will be able to take a call on this” he clarified.

In another statement the Vokkaliga strongman in central Karnataka BN Bachche Gowda also a leader of the BJP has stated that he cannot believe that the JDS is going to have a truck with BJP that they had called as communal party. The state leadership has big faces but the top leadership of the party in Delhi do not consider them as worthy of their stature and need not consult them before forging an alliance with the JDS. He told “this alliance will be a big disadvantage for the BJP in Old Mysuru and Central Karnataka in the 2024 general elections due to conflict of caste factors between the two strong communities”.