The Bharatiya Janata Party‘s challenges in the southern states have grown more complex after losing power in Karnataka to the Congress.

The top leadership of the BJP has been plotting to add more seats from the south in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, but after Saturday’s counting of votes, the task appears tougher than before.

There were several factors that contributed to the party’s loss in the state, and much will now depend on how the party moves from here on.

The Leadership Change

Over the last few years, the BJP has changed the leadership in the states where it’s been the ruling party to beat the anti-incumbency wave. The formula worked in Gujarat and Uttarakhand, where the party came back to power, but not in Karnataka. This was possibly because the local leadership in the southern state has more clout compared with the counterparts in Gujarat and Uttarakhand.

The BJP had formed the government in Karnataka in 2019 under Yeddyurappa after 17 legislators from Congress and JDS defected to the party. Two years later, the party replaced Yeddyurappa with Basavaraj Bommai. Since then, the party had been trying to balance the leadership equation in the state, which was riddled with faction fights. Lack of clarity in the leadership issue in the state proved detrimental in front of a united local leadership of the Congress party.

The Beneficiary Politics Over the last nine years, one of BJP’s biggest success stories has been that of creating a new beneficiary voter who has stood by the party in several elections. This move, which resonates well in the Hindi heartland, didn’t yield expected results in an industrial state like Karnataka.

Top BJP leaders kept highlighting that owing to the party’s efforts, 54 lakh farmers in the state have been getting ₹10,000 (₹6,000 from the Centre and another ₹4,000 from the state) under the PM Kisan scheme. However, the party didn’t get the desired support in the rural and agricultural regions of Old Mysore, Mumbai Karnataka, and Hyderabad Karnataka. The change in reservation policy to take along certain caste groups at the last moment also created troubles in certain communities, such as the Banjara community.

The Rebels

After Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka became another state where rebels posed a huge challenge for the BJP. In the Gujarat polls, the party had asked several senior leaders to opt out of the election and they had complied. However, in Karnataka, there was rebellion in the party’s state unit after the first list of candidates was declared, in which the BJP had dropped nine sitting MLAs.