By V.S. Karnic, IANS
Bangalore : The biggest roadblock to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) desire to install its first chief minister in southern India is none other than former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda.
Exploiting BJP’s keenness to come to power in the south, its ruling partner Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) has deftly played its cards using every opportunity to dominate if it gives up the chief minister’s post to BJP Oct 3.
It is yet to say if it will let the BJP take over the reins of Karnataka in line with the informal agreement it reached with H.D. Kumaraswamy in February 2006 that propelled him to the chief minister’s post.
Kumaraswamy, son of former prime minister and JD-S president H.D. Deve Gowda, forged an alliance with the BJP in February 2006 to bring down his own party’s coalition government with Congress.
The reason he gave for rebelling against his father was his accusation that the Congress was destroying the JD-S and hence there was no harm in joining hands with a party he and his father derided as “communal”.
The BJP agreed to all the terms of Kumaraswamy, including allowing him to be the chief minister for the first 20 months of the remaining 40 months tenure of the assembly even though it was the BJP that had emerged as the largest block with 79 members after the 2004 assembly elections.
Deve Gowda cried foul at his son’s action, said he had been let down by his own offspring and suspended Kumaraswamy and other legislators backing him from the JD-S.
A few months later all turned out to be well.
The son came in for fulsome praise from the father for allegedly saving JD-S from being destroyed by Congress, for running the coalition without allowing BJP to push its “communal” agenda and working hard for the state’s development.
Now when the time has come for Kumaraswamy to honour the ‘gentleman’s agreement’, Deve Gowda has taken charge, and the son conveniently says the party is supreme and he will abide by its decision.
And Deve Gowda believes in interacting only with national leaders of the BJP, not the state leaders.
Even in 2004, after Karnataka threw up a hung assembly, Deve Gowda insisted on talking about a coalition with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Later, during a by-poll to the Lok Sabha, he fielded a JD-S candidate because Sonia Gandhi did not seek his support for the Congress.
Deve Gowda is again at it.
He is insisting he can discuss and consider power transfer to BJP only after talks with that party’s central leaders.
It does not matter that the agreement to share the chief minister’s post and the portfolios was reached between Kumaraswamy with local BJP leaders in February 2006.
Central BJP leaders were then only too happy with the development because they were eager to see the party in power in the south for the first time.
Deve Gowda is seen as a difficult man to deal with.
The general perception in Karnataka is he is a 24X7 politician whose moves are difficult to gauge.
He has been accused of being interested only in promoting his family’s interests and was widely ridiculed after he condoned his son for joining hands with BJP.
His decision now to take the centre stage on power transfer and Kumaraswamy’s move to pass on the responsibility to his father is a calculated risk.
If BJP refuses to remain a junior player after Oct 3, the state will invariably head for early polls or a spell of President’s Rule followed by elections.
The BJP hopes to gain from the sympathy for being deprived of chief minister’s job even after it cooperated with the JD-S during the last 20 months.
The JD-S will have to fight off the tag of betrayer, whatever noise it may make about BJP keeping mum on some of its members’ grave charges against Kumaraswamy, including murder attempt charge levelled by BJP Tourism Minister B. Sriramulu.
It is Sriramulu’s charge that Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy are using to force BJP to accept their terms for power transfer.
Sriramulu resigned Saturday evening and announced he will not be a minister until the BJP comes to power in Karnataka on its own. He also toned down charges against Kumaraswamy.
But the BJP may not come to power on its own even in the next election. In the process, the Congress may be the beneficiary, by default.
The Congress has resisted the temptation to share power again by joining hands with the JD-S, a trait not generally associated with that party.