Karnataka had led the way for the Opposition, especially for the Congress, in 2018 when the party had made a government with the Janata Dal (Secular), as the Bharatiya Janata Party—the single largest then—couldn’t muster the numbers required to stay on in power. Later that year, the Congress had beaten the BJP in three major Hindi-speaking states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi or BRS) had retained another south border state of Telangana, where the Congress had trailed way behind and the BJP scored almost naught, and Mizoram had gone to the Mizo National Front. With just four months to go for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition was charged up to predict the BJP’s ouster from New Delhi. However, in the general elections, all these states, barring Telangana, voted contrary to the Vidhan Sabha trends, giving Narendra Modi a massive push for the second term, with the number of MPs much bigger than 2014. 

Repeat albeit with difference

This time around, the Congress is again buoyed, strongly hoping to beat the BJP in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and later in the Lok Sabha polls in April-May next year, of course by consolidating the like-minded parties. The script appears to be repeated, but with an important difference that could be decisive, at least, in these three states. In Karnataka, the voters this year turned the previous three-way fight into two-way. They dealt a massive defeat to the BJP, which hadn’t faced such an electoral low in recent years, and relegated the JD(S) to an insignificant position. It was proven once again that the Congress benefitted when the other parties, including its own offshoots, weren’t in the fray. Traditionally, the states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have had a straight battle between the Congress and the BJP. The dynamics there aren’t expected to change. With BRS in charge, Telangana is likely to be out of bounds to the Congress, the BJP and any new or old regional players there.