All the Bharatiya Janata Party needs is “one chance” to rule Karnataka. This was L.K. Advani’s touching appeal to voters during the campaign for the assembly elections. There is a lot behind the passion of this appeal. The BJP has so far been rather lacklustre in the South. Karnataka alone gives the party a sporting chance: in the last elections it was the largest party, this time it can hope to better that. Without a majority, though, things are bleak. Mr Advani has said that the BJP will be in opposition rather than tie up to govern with the Janata Dal (Secular), that faithless partner, whose perfectly timed tantrums left first the Congress and then the BJP in the lurch not so long ago. The BJP is relying on its Lingayat voters, and has as its card its record of governance and development when it ruled the state with the JD(S). Mr Advani may be all fire and brimstone over “the virus of opportunism and betrayal”, but that is unlikely to stop the JD(S) — or its headman, H.D. Deve Gowda. For a regional party to command power with two big-brother parties jostling for space, opportunism and betrayal are the key. The JD(S) will be competing with the Congress for the Vokkaliga vote, because the latter is targeting that vote bank in the south of the state as well as the backward castes, Dalits and minorities.

But the JD(S) may have played one game too many. The mess the state is in after its frolics last year is bound to have serious effects on development, in spite of the state’s housing India’s information technology hub and once having been foremost in e-governance. The dispute over the Bangalore Mysore infrastructure corridor project has not improved matters. Instability cannot be welcome, and it is clear that the JD(S) has contributed to that. The Congress made it to second place last time; this time its job is complicated by the fact that it is the face of the United Progressive Alliance, a reminder of the price rise. But there seems to have been a quiet understanding with the JD(S), whereby S. Bangarappa from the Samajwadi Party has been put up against B.S. Yediyurappa, the BJP chief ministerial candidate. The BJP and the JD(S) are going to town with their respective promises. Since there is really no distinction among the main contenders regarding ideology or policy — the BJP’s Hindutva is barely noticeable — it is a tough choice for the people. There are many ways in which history can repeat itself.