Almost mirroring the 2013 Vidhan Sabha polls, Congress is right now ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Karnataka elections, and if there is no major turn around, it may well be inching towards forming the government on its own or with little outside support.

At present, out of the 224 leads available, Congress is ahead in 120 seats, the saffron party is ahead in 77 seats while Janata Dal (S) is ahead in 23 seats and others are ahead in four seats.

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Those who are leading include Chief Minister of Karnataka Basavraj Bommai of the BJP from Shiggaon, NA Haris of the Congress is leading from Shantinagar, and DK Shivakumar of the Congress is leading from Kanakpura. He is ahead of R Ashoka of the BJP from Kanakpura.

Strangely, HD Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (S) is trailing from Channapatna. Also, CT Ravi of the BJP is trailing from Chikmagalur, and former CM Jagdish Shettar now part of the Congress is also trailing from Hubbali. Congress president Mallikaarjun Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge is trailing from Chittapur. GS Reddy of the BJP is trailing from Ballari City, GT Devegowda of the JDS is ahead in Chamundeshwari, B Nagendra of the Congress is leading from Ballari while B Sriramulu of the BJP is trailing from Ballari. Laxman Savadi of the Congress leads from Athani while BY Vijayendra of the BJP is ahead in Shikarpura.

Dharmasenan, a keen watcher of South Indian politics says, “This somewhat reflects the 2013 Vidhan Sabha elections of Karnataka. The exit polls like this time around predicted a Congress victory and that is coming out to be true. Congress won 122 seats in an assembly of 224 while BJP and Janata Dal (S) secured 40 seats each.”

Vijay Grover, a senior journalist from Bengaluru says, “If Congress is able to stay ahead of the magic figure of 113, Kumaraswamy, who is already trailing himself may become irrelevant in the state politics. Also, there will be a question mark about who will helm the JDS.” Experts who have their ear to the ground say, many bigwigs are losing the trust of the voters and so many big names trailing is a clear sign of that.