Subhechcha Ganguly 
Election in Karnataka: The BJP decided to replace the chief minister in the hopes that it would defeat anti-incumbency, as it had in Gujarat and Uttarakhand. However, the judgement in Karnataka angered the influential Lingayat community. Despite a high-voltage campaign that included rallies and roadshows by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several top ministers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to win just 64 seats, down from 104 in 2018, despite both its promise of development through a “double engine” government and its strong Hindutva push.
The loss on Saturday is a setback for the party, which had high hopes of breaking a 27-year pattern of anti-incumbency into pro-incumbency. It also may put an end to ambitions to increase the party’s presence in the southern states. After all, Karnataka is the only state in the area where the BJP has a sizable local cadre and has held office in the past.Senior party leaders admitted that the perception of corruption and administrative failings overshadowed the party’s campaign blitz but attributed the defeat to a number of factors, including dissatisfaction with the state government, the change of the chief minister midway through his term, and pushing an ideological agenda instead of local issues.
BS Yediyurappa, a Lingayat strongman who essentially created the state from scratch, was replaced as chief minister by Basavaraj Bommai two years before the elections, according to a top state party leader. This move was cited as a major contributing cause in the party’s defeat.”The party accoutrements’ incapacity to explain to the populace the work accomplished and the changes it resulted in people’s lives worked against us. The leader, who wished to remain unnamed, continued, “Of course, there was the failure to successfully forge relationships with other castes, such as the Vokkaligas (11%), the Kurbas (9%), and upsetting the Lingayats by changing the CM.
