By V.S. Karnic
Bangalore, Sep 18 (IANS) Two weeks remain for Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) to hand over power to coalition partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka but there is complete uncertainty as to whether the transfer will actually take place Oct 3.
The conflicting signals from the JD-S on the power transfer for more than a month now and the number of theories on the differences within the BJP on the issue has been aptly described by a harried leader of that party as “tax-free entertainment”.
Leading the JD-S brigade in making contradictory statements is Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who has to make way for the Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Oct 3 under an informal agreement the two reached to topple the Congress-JD-S coalition government in the state in February 2006.
Kumaraswamy’s father and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who is also JD-S president, is also contributing to the uncertainty.
He has been saying that the power transfer will take place only after he has talks on the issue with BJP national leaders – former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leader of opposition L.K. Advani and party president Rajnath Singh.
That meeting will take place Sep 28 and Deve Gowda says he wants his son and other state JD-S leaders not to talk about power transfer till then.
Kumaraswamy started off as chief minister with lot of goodwill from the people, though he joined hands with BJP to topple a coalition government in which his party was a partner.
He is young at 48 years and announced a slew of programmes to tone up the lethargic and corrupt administration. He holds ‘janatha darshan’ (meeting with public) on Saturdays when he is in Bangalore and has begun spending a night in backward villages.
His image has, however, taken a beating in the last 19 months he has been in power. His programmes have either not taken off or are progressing at a slow pace.
Bangalore, known as the IT capital of India, continues to suffer. Roads remain pot-holed and traffic snarls show no sign of abating.
A half-an-hour heavy downpour turns several arterial roads of Bangalore into rivers and low-lying areas get flooded.
More than these problems, Kumaraswamy is worried about the severe drubbing to his credibility if he does not stick to his power transfer promise.
He is also wary of angering the dominant Lingayat community to which Yediyurappa belongs. Kumaraswamy belongs to another dominant community, Vokkaligas.
His father Deve Gowda, however, is not that worried as he hopes to offset any loss in Lingayat votes to JD-S by playing the secular card to woo minorities.
In a deft move, Deve Gowda recently appointed Merajuddin Patel, a minority leader from north Karnataka, as president of the Karnataka unit of the party. JD-S has a weak base in north Karnataka where Lingayats dominate and there is strong support for BJP.
For the BJP, it has become a classic case of running the whole distance only to see the goal post altered.
BJP emerged as the single largest party with 79 seats in the 225-member assembly in the 2004 general elections but agreed to play a secondary role in the hope of installing its first chief minister in southern India.
In the last 19 months, BJP has made noises but swallowed many decisions taken unilaterally by the coalition partner.
It has ignored or reacted mildly to JD-S barbs against it as a ‘communal’ party whose leaders cannot be trusted to follow secular principles and the common minimum programme of the coalition government.
Power transfer has been the dominant issue in the local media for more than a month now. And no meeting with leaders of the two parties ends without a question or two on power transfer.
Apparently exasperated by the persistence of the media and the contradictory statements of JD-S leaders on the issue, state BJP president D.V. Sadananda Gowda earlier this month termed the whole exercise as “tax-free entertainment to the people of Karnataka”.
The entertainment is set to continue through September and reach a climax a few days later.