By V.S. Karnic, IANS
Bangalore : Karnataka’s three main parties – Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) – have one thing in common as they ready for a mid-term poll. It is not, for a change, hunger for power, but fear of the electorate that just over three years ago found that none deserves their mandate.
Between May 2004 and October 2007, Karnataka saw the collapse of two coalition governments. It could be a replay as a mid-term election seems imminent, forced by the BJP pulling out of its coalition with JD-S, which failed to honour its word and hand over the chief minister’s chair on Oct 3.
All three parties claim they are ready for the polls. The only other option would be another messy alliance between the JD-S and Congress, which Monday told Governor Rameshwar Thakur categorically that it would not back Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and that his government must go.
Only 20 months ago, the JD-S led by Kumaraswamy joined hands with the BJP to bring down the JD-S and Congress coalition. The Congress is worried that another stab at a government with JD-S will discredit it further and, worse, help the BJP.
Voters are getting smarter in spite of the continuing flow of money, liquor and use of muscle power as well as caste and communal appeal to get their votes.
On the face of it, BJP should do better in the coming polls than it did in 2004 when it managed 79 seats, its highest so far, in the 225-member (with one nominated member) assembly.
A shining glory for BJP in the state when contrasted with the flop-show of the party’s ‘India Shining’ campaign at the national level polls which ended the rule of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The BJP has been deprived of having its first chief minister in south India by machinations of JD-S, dubbed often as ‘thande-makkala paksha’ (father-and-sons party). The father is former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his son are, of course, Chief Minister Kumaraswamy and his elder brother H.D. Revanna, energy and public works department minister.
BJP is betting on the sympathy factor at being denied the chief minister’s post by Kumaraswamy backtracking from his promise.
But that might be placing too much premium on sympathy. As the months roll, the BJP will find it difficult to convince people that it did right by blindly trusting Kumaraswamy to the extent of ignoring telltale signs that power transfer is a mirage.
The longer the gap from now and the poll schedule, the harder it will it for the BJP to sustain the tempo.
On his part, Kumaraswamy has already begun to project himself as a victim and not a betrayer. His refrain is he was ready to quit as agreed on Oct 3 and make way for BJP’s B.S. Yediyurappa as chief minister but BJP leaders themselves worked against it.
For a politician who made it to the assembly in his third attempt and became chief minister 21 months after becoming a legislator, Kumaraswamy has graduated fast to play political cards with the skill of a consummate politician.
Caught between these two is the Congress, reduced to a tertiary role with no leader of consequence at the state level and looking up to New Delhi for a directive.
For a state whose capital Bangalore has become a byword for taking away jobs from across the world, sympathy is not an emotion to tap.
The voters, for many of whom the Bangalore boom represented by IT, BPO and call centres are the goalposts, may hear their leaders wailing about the betrayal they suffered. But when it comes to giving their mandate, they may have their own manifestos, of seeing their towns as booming centres of economic activity rather than political laboratories.
Kumaraswamy, Yediyurappa and Congress leaders, state and national, may have missed this beat.
Still one of them or a combination will rule Karnataka. The dichotomy between the ruler and the ruled could not have been more explicit.