Prime Minister Narendra Modi's taunt against the Congress during the Karnataka elections campaign has turned to be true. Modi had said Congress would turn to be a PPP (Punjab, Puducherry and Parivar) party. BJP has demolished another Congress citadel, making a gateway to South India.
Celebrations has begun at BJP's new headquarters in Delhi as trends showed a clear mandate for the saffron party. The new building is proving to be lucky for the party as it has won the second state in a row after Tripura.
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The results have once again proved that the combined power of Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah continue to hold sway over people.
The BJP has emerged as the single largest party with lead in over 110 seats, while the Congress and the JD(S) are distant runner ups.
However, Congress' vote share (37.7 percent) was slightly higher than that of the BJP (37.2 percent).
Sources said the surge in BJP numbers came after Modi started holding rallies across the state. He addressed over 16 rallies starting from May 1.
Shah, on his part, has been micromanaging the campaign in the state. His strategy was to bombard the state with rallies from different BJP leaders. In the last few days before the polls, he held a number of road shows for maximum impact.
''People of Karnataka want good governance, that is why they have chosen BJP. This is a big victory for the party. Congress is losing state after state and we are winning state after state,” Prakash Javadekar, BJP Karnataka in-charge said.
Piyush Goyal was co-in-charge of the BJP in Karnataka. Modi rewarded him with additional responsibility of finance ministry in absence of Arun Jaitley, who underwent a surgery.
The victory has boosted BJP's morale as three states being ruled by the party will go to polls later this year. Those will also be direct contest between BJP and Congress. Unlike other states, where anti-incumbency in non-BJP states helped the saffron party, here the battle is again going to be tough. But as of now it's advantage BJP.
Even as there were indications that Congress and JD(S) can come together to deny BJP the chance to form government, the saffron party sources said they will form the government.
Javadekar said the BJP will form government as the manate was for the party. He added that by evening BJP will get the numbers.
However, the emerging scenario has forced the BJP leaders and even its spokespersons into huddle. It will need new messaging to counter any talk of alliance between Congress and JD(S).