Sharad Pawar predicts Congress will win Karnataka assembly election next month, but views state and national elections as separate contests.

Sharad Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief, has predicted that the Indian National Congress will win the upcoming Karnataka assembly election, scheduled to be held on May 10th. Currently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power in the state, and is looking to secure another term in the south Indian region where it first came to power in 2008. However, Mr. Pawar believes that the Karnataka election should not be viewed from the perspective of the upcoming national election, due to be held next year, although he acknowledged that the BJP often connects national and state issues in its campaigns. Mr. Pawar argued that state-level elections are a different game entirely, citing examples of non-BJP parties having won in assembly polls before, despite the BJP holding power at the centre of the country.
 
Mr. Pawar stated that the opposition must work together to be successful in the 2024 election, as it will be very difficult to ignore the power of the BJP. He also spoke about his own experience of forming government with the Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena faction and the Congress, and then losing power as Mr. Thackeray led his faction to the BJP, the party’s former ally. Currently, NCP is an ally of the Congress party in Maharashtra.
 
The Karnataka election is set to be closely contested and both the Congress and the BJP will be hoping for a positive result in this important southern state. Votes will be counted three days after the election has taken place.