When the BJP was given that shock therapy by Janata Dal(S) supremo H.D.Deve Gowda who managed to persuade his son, H.D.Kumaraswamy last November, not to keep up the promise to hand over power after 20 months, there was glee in the party camp. But it was tempered down to quite an extent, when its Chief Ministerial hopeful, B.S.Yeddyurappa almost ignored saner advice from party leadership and embarked on that one week disaster of a Government, before being pulled down. Some of them at that time had felt that the anxiety displayed by Yeddyurappa to grab power at all cost, could have deprived them of the sympathy factor.

In fact even when the campaign began for this election many BJP insiders openly admitted that there was no sympathy factor working. But as the campaign comes to an end and with just two days to go for the final phase of polling, BJP must be pleasantly surprised. One because people seem to have virtually forgotten the Yeddyurappa dash from Tumkur to take oath as Chief Minister, after indulging in abuse and counter abuse with Kumaraswamy and Deve Gowda, and second there is actually an undercurrent of sympathy for not having been given a chance to run a Government.

The BJP's story in Karnataka from 1994 onwards has been that of a steady growth, and it's now poised to surpass all its previous performance. From 40 seats in 1994 Assembly elections with just 17 percent vote share, it steadily improved its seats share as well as vote share in 1999, when it won 44 seats and 20.69 percent votes. 2004 however proved to be its most fruitful electoral venture ever, when it emerged as the single largest party with 79 seats and its vote share leaped to an impressive 28.33 percent.

This steady growth was made possible by some deft political affiliations it sewed up with Ramakrishna Hegde in 1998 and again in 1999 and later with the Janata Dal(U) and S.Bangarappa in 2004. Hegde joining hands with them helped enormously as he opened doors to them in places where it did not exist in many northern districts in the State, and also consolidated the lingayats who had been looking for a party to support, as Hegde declined politically. After having successfully harnessed the Hegde vote bank, BJP did a smart thing in 2004, by wooing Bangarappa into its fold. And its last masterstroke was aligning with the Janata Dal(S) and forming a Government in 2006.
This gave them access to districts in Southern Karnataka, where it was virtually non existent, and it is reaping that benefit now in this election. It is no surprise therefore to find across the State, erstwhile cadres and supporters of Janata Dal(S) having turned to the BJP. This has helped the BJP to gain not only a foothold in southern districts like Mandya, Mysore, Hassan, Tumkur, but also have ready made candidates and cadres. Similar is the case in central districts like Chitradurga where it did not win a single seat last time, or in northern Karnataka districts like Koppal and Raichur.

It is interesting to note that the cadres and supporters, who have moved to BJP, make no bones about the reason for their shift.

This factor coupled with the increasing feeling of "why not try them once" is visibly propelling the chances of the BJP towards what more and more looks like the century mark, if not beyond. The only reason why it may stutter and fail to reach that mark can be its lack of cadre base in places where these sentiments run. It is no secret in any election that cadres are needed to goad people to the polling booths, and it is here that Congress with is age old base across the State may just succeed to do better in many places where BJP may actually have the voters sentiment going in its favour. The other reason could be lack of effective candidates or wrong choice of candidates, it also suffers from in about 15 percent of the seats.

However two more factors which are working in its favour apart from the dominant, "why not try them once" factor is the large scale migration of leaders and candidates from JD(S) as well as Congress. BJP smartly grabbed ticket aspirants from both Congress and JD(S), and gave them tickets in as many as 35 to 40 constituencies where they could not find suitable candidates. Many of these candidates are now going to be the party's foundation in those constituencies. It is another matter that the party has now more "outsiders" in its fold which is a constant source of irritation to its old timers, who are essentially rooted in the Sangh Parivar ideology. It is something which can be a problem later.

But at present, all that has very little significance as the party has been able to sell its "give us a chance too" theme pretty effectively. Of course one can also never under-estimate the hindutva campaign, its allied forces like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Hindu Jagrana Sena, Bajrang Dal and others have been conducting by holding periodic Virat hindu sammelans. These programmes have also helped in spreading the hindutva message especially in coastal and Malnad districts effectively, which is coming to the party's aid now.

In fact what is happening to the party now can be equated to what happened to it at the national level, when its first full fledged NDA government in 1998 fell in just 13 months. It had propelled them to a comfortable majority in 1999. Will BJP be able to do a repeat of it in Karnataka now? Well, its anybody's guess now if it will cross the magical 112 mark, but it is certainly on a roll now in Karnataka.