By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net
Though he denies that he had ever said that Karnataka was following the Gujarat model, yet political observers equate the two BJP governments––one in the West and another in South of the country. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, a new asset for the party, while speaking on the completion of two years in office of the first BJP government in the state on June 23 said that Karnataka would be a model state in the next three years.
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa [TCN Photo]
He may be right. Mired in what is said to be Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) mining scam––arguably the biggest ever in the country––the achievement is nothing short of the best example of “corruption-free government.” Perhaps this was what Narendra Modi preached in a two-day conclave (June 5-6, 2010) of the BJP chief ministers on good governance and development held in a village near Mumbai.
As if that was not enough. The State Food and Civil Supplies Minister H Halappa had to resign on May 2 last for allegedly raping, none other but his own friend’s wife. What is strange is that the Chief Minister Yeddyurappa stoutly defended Halappa and called the incident a conspiracy to defame his government.
The BJP, which now at the national level tries to hide its own agenda beneath the slogans of good governance and development is finding itself in hell lot of trouble in Karnataka. None else but the Lokayukta (Ombudsman), former Supreme Court judge, N Santosh Hegde, resigned just on the eve of the completion of the two years in the office of Yeddyurappa government. He accused the government of shielding the corrupt officials and politicians. However, it was left up to, none else but the former deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, to convince Justice Hegde to withdraw his resignation.
The BJP government in Karnataka has always been caught up in controversies yet the propaganda machinery of the party is always busy highlighting it as a success story. The fact is that Karnataka, like Gujarat, was among the developed states of India, and what it is now; it has nothing to do with the two years of the Yeddyurappa government.
The two years old government has always been in the news for dissident activities of the Reddy brothers––two of them ministers and third MLA––the sex scandal, resignation of Lokayukta and the latest (on July 13) state governor H R Bhardwaj’s instruction to the chief minister to drop the corrupt ministers involved in the mining scam.
Yeddyurappa’s problem is very complicated. He knows his ministers are involved in the scam, which runs into thousands of crore. Yet he cannot drop them so easily, even if so asked by the governor. His party, in return, had appealed to the President to sack the governor.
The Reddy brothers, Tourism Minister G Janardhana Reddy, his elder brother and Revenue Minister G Karunakara Reddy, and younger brother G Somashekara Reddy, MLA, are accused of large-scale illegal mining in Bellary in Karnataka and in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
The brothers own the Obulapuram Mining Company. It is said that between 2003 and now, over 30 million tonnes of iron ore has been illegally mined and exported from Karnataka causing a huge revenue loss.
BJP leaders: What have they achieved for India? [TCN Photo]
Political observers are of the view that the Yeddyurappa government can do little as the Reddy brothers enjoy huge political clout. Last October their dissident activities completely paralyzed the state government.
While the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs are on dharna for four consecutive nights in the state assembly demanding the CBI inquiry the chief minister is caught in a bind. As he is also holding the mining portfolio he is defending the Reddy brothers by stating that the Lokayukta is probing the matter.
The truth is that the Lokayukta had publicly criticized the state government for non-cooperation and it is after much persuasion by Advani and personal visit by BJP president Nitin Gadkari and Yeddyurappa to his house that he recently agreed to withdraw his resignation.
With the strong backing from the media and the industrialists’ lobby the BJP chief ministers always get full opportunity to make tall claims about the so-called good governance and corruption free government. Yet whenever the respective state governments are in the crisis or dissident activities re-surface efforts are made to raise some emotive issue to distract the attention of the common people.
In the name of good governance and development all efforts are made to hide the original sin of its leaders. While industrialists find prime ministerial material in Narendra Modi to conceal his original crime of 2002, in Karnataka the national media is not as vocal as it should be––given the quantum of corruption in the state––for obvious reasons. Heaven would have fallen down had ministers of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Yadav or Mayawati cabinet been involved in Rs 60,000 crore scam.
Similarly, while Raman Singh and Shivraj Singh Chauhan, chief ministers of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh respectively are applauded for their ‘good performance’ the truth is that these are the states, especially the former, where Maoists are virtually ruling the roost. And the Naxals became strong only after the coming to power of the BJP.
The Prem Kumar Dhumal government in Himachal Pradesh and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank government in Uttarakhand would made tall claims about development when the truth is that all these were possible because the two states were given the special industrial package by the then Vajpayee government in 2003. When that status expired in March 2010 the two governments started talking about discrimination by the Centre, where now the UPA is in power.
Very few can match the BJP’s quality to fudge the figures and twist the facts.