By V.S. Karnic, IANS
Bangalore : The wait to rule a southern state, even in a coalition, has been too long for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its new Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa. But now Yeddyurappa will need all his patience to keep ally Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), especially its chief H.D. Deve Gowda, in good humour.
Yeddyurappa, a firm believer in gods, stars and seers, will require all their support to do a fine balancing act to survive in office for the next 19 months.
He will not only have to keep Gowda in humour but also keep up the pressure on his party central leaders to do likewise to ensure he stays in office.
This will call for many visits to the posh residence of Gowda in Bangalore’s upmarket Padmanabha Nagar area and appeals to his own leaders in Delhi not to treat such visits as dancing to the tunes of the JD-S chief.
Yeddyurappa will also have to ensure that his detractors within his own party do not speak or act in a manner that may upset Gowda.
While agreeing to support a BJP-led government, Gowda had prepared a Memorandum of Understanding for BJP chief Rajnath Singh to sign to ensure stability of the government.
The 12-poing MOU wants a powerful role for Gowda’s son and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, in that no major decision on policy or on transfer of senior officials can be taken without his consent.
Rajnath Singh is taking his own time to respond.
A sulking Gowda hit back, ruling that no one from his party would take the oath along with Yeddyurappa on Monday.
And as Rajnath Singh led his party stalwarts L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Narendra Modi and others to Bangalore to witness the swearing-in of the party’s first chief minister in the south, Gowda flew to Delhi, apparently to avoid meeting any BJP leader.
Keeping pace with Gowda’s political plans is a hard task even for Yeddyurappa and the BJP, though both learnt it in a bitter manner in the first two days of October just when they thought that the chief ministership was all theirs.
The BJP, which has 79 seats in the assembly, had agreed to Kumaraswamy being the chief minister in 2006 on the understanding that after 20 months he would make way for Yeddyurappa for the remaining 20 months of the assembly’s five-year term.
The party took in its stride many decisions that Kumaraswamy took without consulting it in order to ensure that the power transfer was smooth.
When the JD-S backed out of handing over power on Oct 3, the BJP was forced to pull out of the coalition.
After launching yatras, terming the JD-S as “vachana brashtas” (people who dishonour their word), the BJP has decided to again align with party.
From two seats in the 225-member assembly in early 1980s, the party has waged a relentless battle for the last 25 years to capture power in the state.
Ironically, it was the Congress’ alleged attempt to split the JD-S that helped the BJP to taste power in Karnataka and thus in the south for the first time in 2006.
In the 2004 polls, the party won the highest number of seats, 79, but could not muster support of another 34 members for a majority. The party had to settle for the role of opposition as the Congress with 65 members and the JD-S with 58 came together to form a coalition headed by N. Dharam Singh of the Congress.
That was till Kumaraswamy formed an alliance with the BJP in 2006.
Yeddyurappa is hopeful of managing the affairs.
“Atal Bihari Vajpayee-ji who managed a 24-party alliance smoothly at the centre for five years is my role model,” said Yeddyurappa.
Hopefully, Atalj-i’s words may still carry some weight with Gowda and ultimately ensure that the BJP-led government in Karnataka survives for 19 months.