Congress swept the Karnataka polls winning a clear majority with the largest vote share won by any party since the Congress itself won the 1989 elections under the leadership of Veerendra Patil. The victory has come as a surprise to many including many within the Congress itself, who were constantly second guessing their strategy and worried that a single misstep will derail it.
Let there be no mistake that this was a make or break election for the Congress. Lose it and its chances of being seen as a credible opposition to the Narendra Modi government, or even as a party capable of leading a joint Opposition alliance in 2024 would have ended on the night of May 13. With the victory and the manner of it, the party lives to fight another day.
However, if the Congress is to build on this victory and stand a chance of competing with the BJP, that remains a formidable election winning machine, it is important that the party learns the right lessons from it's victory in Karnataka. The Karnataka election was a result of not just the Congress' campaign but also of the missteps of the BJP government, who changed chief ministers in 2021 while the outgoing Chief Minister B S Bommai allowed allegations of misgovernance, rampant corruption and unbridled communalism to go uncountered. The party, for some reason decided to brazen it out failing to even pretend to act against ministers accused of corruption ensuring that they enjoyed impunity despite obvious cases of corruption.
To the Congress credit, it was able to cash in on this unhappiness with the government and present itself as a real alternative through a real issue-based campaign that ignored all the noise and distractions that the BJP including the Prime Minister Narendra Modi attempted to inject into the campaign. As a consequence when the Prime Minister attempted to raise communal issues like that of Bajrang Bali, The Kerala Story or to paint the Congress as a communal party indulging in appeasement, it came across as solely being a feeble attempt to hide his own government's misdeeds and a brazen attempt to misuse religious sentiments for electoral gains.
The Congress must also realise that disgusted with their own government in the state even the core BJP voters turned against their own party, something they are unlikely to repeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. As such it will be a folly for the Congress to rest on its laurels, but should instead find a way to scale up its performance in Karnataka to the national level -- to replicate the issue based campaign, clear messaging and more importantly to take civil society along to buttress its credibility.
In Karnataka, the contractors association, persistently raised the issue of corruption and urged people to vote against corruption, this adding a form of endorsement and credibility to the Congress campaign. The Congress is going to need more independent endorsements from people across the social and political spectrum at the national level if it is the overthrow the BJP.
The biggest mistake the Congress can make is to think that it has won the elections because of its own ability and not because of the help the blundering BJP gave it along the way, and the help it received from independent bodies. Those blunders are unlikely to be repeated, especially not at the national level and the Congress and the opposition will have to find a way to force them.
