VOKKALIGA PREMIER LEAGUE

Over the past couple of decades, the run-up to nearly every assembly election in Karnataka has involved a key question about the Janata Dal (Secular)-its ability to play the kingmaker.

- Ajay Sukumaran

Such an outcome came about in 2004 and again in 2018, when the JD(S) was wedged in between the two bigger players, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, leading to shortlived coalition governments.

In these two decades, the reach of the party led by former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, anchored in support from the Vokkaliga caste group, has seemingly dwindled, with a regular exodus of leaders between elections. Yet, as Karnataka heads into another state election in April-May, that key question looms as large as it always has.

The prospect of a hung state assembly is something that both the ruling BJP and Congress are wary of, and keen to avoid. In the past few days, that concern was evident as top leaders of both parties trained their guns on the JD(S) as they toured the state.

At the BJP's vijay sankalp rally in the northern district of Belagavi on January 28, Union home minister Amit Shah dwelt on the two 'parivarwadi' (family-controlled) parties in his address, saying that every vote to the JD(S) will eventually benefit the Congress. It was a line of attack against the regional party that Shah had first used a few weeks ago in Mandya-a stronghold of the JD(S) in southern Karnataka.