Karnataka polls barely a year away, Congress' MLC wins rattle BJP

The Congress winning two legislative council seats comes as a warning to the ruling BJP in Karnataka days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit.
The Opposition party won two out of the four seats that went to the polls on June 13. On the other hand, the JD (S), the regional party led by the father-son duo of HD Deve Gowda-HD Kumaraswamy, lost both seats in its stronghold of the Mandya-Mysuru belt.

The surge in the Congress prospects has worried the BJP as it braces for the local body polls, including the crucial elections to the Bengaluru civic body, the BBMP. Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, speaking to the media in Davanagere on Thursday, indicated that the government would hold panchayat elections after BBMP polls.

The setback to the BJP also comes at a time when it is headed to the assembly polls in less than a year under Bommai's leadership.

The BJP had built an image of being a party of choice for the educated and urban middle class voters. However, it has lost a constituency each of South Graduates and Northwest Teachers.

The South Graduates' constituency consists of Mysuru, Chamarajanagara, Mandya and Hassan districts, and two of the MPs representing the region are from the BJP - Pratap Simha (Mysuru-Kodagu) and V Srinivasa Prasad (Chamarajanagar). The Congress has wrested the seat from the JD (S) while puncturing the BJP's confidence of winning it.

Local BJP leaders might squirm in discomfort when Modi visits Mysuru to participate in the Yoga Day celebrations. Even a casual query by the PM about the results could leave them in deep embarrassment. Party functionaries blame the lacklustre performance on groupism among party leaders in the Mysuru region.