Karnataka   

BJP does well in North Karnataka

GULBARGA: Once again North Karnataka has played a crucial role in the Legislative Assembly elections in deciding the ruling party in the State.

If the 12 districts played the deciding role by returning 41 candidates of the BJP out of 79 seats in 2004, in the 2008 elections, the districts once again put the BJP in the saddle by giving it 56 out of 96 seats.

The BJP’s growth in North Karnataka has been steady. Even when the party won 18 seats for the first time, 11 of them were in North Karnataka. In 1989, 50 per cent of the seats won by the BJP was from North Karnataka.

North Karnataka accounted for 11 of the 40 seats won by the BJP in 1994 elections and 15 of the 44 seats in 1999 elections. An analysis of the election results from 1985 in Karnataka shows how the North Karnataka districts played a key role in the formation of the Government and how the parties rejected by the people of the region were dumped.

It was North Karnataka which helped the Janata Party led by late Ramakrishna Hegde to return to power with a comfortable majority by providing 60 out of 139 MLAs and again in 1989 elections it was North Karnataka’s support to the Congress which tilted the scales and helped it bounce back to power after six years.

In the 1989 elections, 68 of the 176 seats won by the Congress was in North Karnataka.

That was also the last time the Congress won so many seats from North Karnataka.

In the 1994 elections, the Congress could win only 22 seats in the region and in the 1999 when the party returned to power with 132 seats, North Karnataka accounted for 60 seats.

In the 2004 election, the tally of the Congress slumped to 24 seats in North Karnataka.

The saffronisation of the majority of the Mumbai Karnataka districts, including Dharwad, Bagalkot, Bijapur, Gadag and Haveri appeared to be complete.

In the remaining two districts of Belgaum and Uttara Kannada, the BJP’s influence appeared to be on the wane with two of its candidates winning in Uttara Kannada out of six seats.

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