15 infographics and 3 screenshots that tell you more about how Karnataka voted than all gasbags put together

The 6Cs in Karnataka: caste, class, cash, corruption, commission, communalism

Scene one, take one: Opinions are like… Aadhaar-card numbers—each one has one.

Thoo, bad try.

Scene one, take two: Opinions are like… insert-your-favourite-scatological-body-part-here—each one has one.

Cheh, too safe.

Scene one, take three: Opinions are like artsholes—each gallery has one.

OK, can.

So, while parachutiyas, who don’t know Karnataka has a village called Google, try to explain why the cough “Karnatak” thumbed its nose at the BJP, the only safe space to navigate in newspapers are the infographics.

Infographics i.e. the bar graphs and pie charts (and, incredibly, satellite pictures) that sometimes provide the bluff to Benjamin Disraeli’s axiom that every third lie is a damned statistic.

(DM to Rukmini S: if data is the plural of datum, is atta the plural of atom?)

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How exactly did the 6Cs—caste, class, cash, corruption, commission, communalism—help Congress get 135 seats, or the BJP 69, of the 224 on offer in #Karnataka?

No one has all the answers but pretty early on, Yogendra Yadav, wearing his psephologist’s pagdi, wrote in The Print the Congress needed a 6-point lead in voteshare at the very least to be head, neck and shoulders above BJP.

Prof Yadav argued this was necessary because the BJP got two per cent fewer votes than Congress in 2018 but ended up with 24 seats more (BJP 104; Cong 80).

So, as if on cue, BJP has got the same voteshare (36%) in 2023 as it did in 2018, but the Congress has got 5% more (43%).

Congress added numbers everywhere except in Silicon Halli, as India Today shows.👇🏿

Headline numbers like these reveal a lot but hide the fineprint.

To read that fineprint clearly, you need a NASA picture. Or maybe pictures from the European Space Agency (ESA).

So, using ESA data from satellite imagery Neelanjan Sircar of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) tells us in the Hindustan Times that while the BJP voteshare in 2023 remained the same as 2018, it lost an average of 5.1% in seats it had won before.

The Kannada daily Vartha Bharti, published from Mangalore, shows that even in the hotbed of Hindutva, the victory margins for BJP fell in three constituencies it won.👇🏿

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For all the guff about Narendra Modi’s rallies that emanates from the perfumed chambers of TV studios, we now know that BJP won in only two of the 16 constituencies where the PM addressed a public meeting.

Strike rate: just over 10%.👇🏿

Modi, the visionary who wants Karnataka to be No.1, visited the state just once in the 24 months that saw Covid and a flood. But in the 4 months of this year, he has come 11 times, on official (PM) duties and non-official (party) duties, which most times are indistinguishable.

The Kannada daily Praja Vani shows that the perceived wisdom about the impact of Narendra Modi’s campaigns—the wild cheering, the hand waving, the “love” he gets from the people—was pure, unadulterated bull dung.

In the 218 constituencies Modi and his bosom buddy maga Amit Shah touched in Karnataka, BJP won but 68 seats.

Strike rate: 31%. 👇🏿

By contrast, the much-maligned nepobabies Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi had a much higher strike rate. Congress won in 101 of the 173 constituencies their campaigns touched.

Strike rate: 58%.👇🏿

In fact, as Stanford scholars Resuf Ahmed and Feyaad Allie explained in Hindustan Times, the Congress won in 16 of the 21 constituencies the Bharat Jodo Yatra snaked through, giving it a 76% strikerate.

On average, the Yatra saw an average 10% uptick in voteshare in constituencies it passed through, with one seat seeing a 22% jump.👇🏿

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In the end, the colours looked like this on the Karnataka map, give or take a seat or two.👇🏿

But what happened below the surface?

Was it caste?

The Times of India shows that in the 120 seats with a major Lingayat presence, Congress won 79 of them, up 38 from 41 five years ago.

BJP, seen as the natural home of Lingayats, saw its share drop from 64 to 31 as B.S. Yediyurappa was shown the door.

Ditto Vokkaligas, up 14 seats for Congress to 35, down 2 for BJP to 16.👇🏿

To counter the rumour that Lingayats were being sidelined with talk of a “Brahmin CM”, BJP put up more Lingayat candidates than Congress. But, as an NDTV graphic showed, BJP Lingayats had a 50% lesser strike rate than Congress Lingayats.👇🏿

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Likewise, for all the claptrap over “Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas” and the WhatsApp forwards “forwarded many times” of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes moving towards BJP, the Indian Express shows that the evidence is to the contrary.

Congress won 21 of the 36 seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (BJP 12/36); Congress won 14 of the 15 reserved for Scheduled Tribes (BJP 0/15).👇🏿

Yes, this graphic has a colouring error which Express mea culpaed the next day, but hey, even “Chanakya” fucks up now and then, here and there, especially here and now in Karnataka.

Look at a less-sexier Times of India graphic to get the correct picture of how SCs/STs voted.👇🏿

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And how did class play out as an issue? Two pre-poll surveys had revealed that the poor and uneducated were with the Congress, while the rich professionals were with the BJP.👇🏿

The results from Bangalore, where Modi blithely did his roadshows two mornings in a row while #ExamWarriors were scurrying to reach their NEET centres, underline that a bit, which a graphic in The Hindu captures.👇🏿

But a more granular picture emerges from Roshan Kishore in the Hindustan Times, who shows that away from two prosperous pockets of the state, #Bengaluru and Coastal Karnataka, people voted through their wallets in four regions.👇🏿

Neelanjan Sircar of CPR validates the on-ground impression that besides everything else, #KarnatakaElections2023 was also a “class war”, between the have-yachts and the have-nots.👇🏿

Triangulating data from ESA satellite pictures, Sircar shows that while BJP lost 7% voteshare in the most urban constituencies—like where Narendra Modi waves to the cameras—it lost a whopping 30% voteshare in the most rural constituencies, where bread-and-butter issues dominate.

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So, the big picture at the end of the day is that the BJP has lost less voteshare in Karnataka than many other states.👇🏿

But as a Mint graphic tells us, it is still one of the few states where BJP has a foot in the doorway to the South.

But despite Karnataka, both Congress and BJP have losing seats in state Assemblies while others gain.👇🏿

Jai Bajrang Bali.

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