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Capturing power on speed

HIS attempt to don an atoning cloak still does not cover up the extraordinary lengths to which the BJP went to capture power, in the process leading to a gubernatorial misstep which had to be set right by the Supreme Court in a pre-dawn hearing.

Capturing power on speed

DID IT COUNT? Voters, who turned out in large numbers to choose their leaders, are bound to feel cheated.



Sandeep Dikshit

HIS attempt to don an atoning cloak still does not cover up the extraordinary lengths to which the BJP went to capture power, in the process leading to a gubernatorial misstep which had to be set right by the Supreme Court in a pre-dawn hearing.

Political sleights such as the Governor’s initial 15-day period to  BJP CM BS Yeddyurappa are an accepted part of statecraft. Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla has recounted in his memoirs that the Lok Sabha Speaker delayed the voting by allowing speakers to drone on on the no-confidence motion against the Narasimha Rao government till a missing MP was located.

The BJP think-tank badly miscalculated by putting Karnataka on a par with Goa and Manipur where extra-parliamentary procedures yielded governments for the party. Goa or Manipur, both important in their contexts, are no patch on the economic engines in Karnataka that generate Rs 15 lakh crore of economic activity annually. This was a prize no one was going to walk-away without a last-ditch fight.

In political Delhi’s consciousness Karnataka does not loom large; the Yeddyurappas and the Siddaramaiahs come alive only during the elections. Karnataka, however, does form the public consciousness, as part of the Indian mainland sharing many of the cultures and traditions with regions across the Vindhya chain of mountains. It was hard to underplay the political skullduggery in Karnataka unlike far-flung provinces where security agencies also lend a helping hand.

This has been more than a transient loss of face for the BJP think-tank. It may think of recouping the loss of political capital with opportunities coming up in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, or even Rajasthan, if the BJP can retrieve the situation in that state.

The after-effects of Karnataka, however, will be more than the sum of all these victories. Had the BJP stayed off from staking claim, the Congress-JD (S) alliance would have been an unsteady arrangement. The audio clips of top BJP leaders, even if still unsubstantiated, and its leadership’s disdain for MLAs of the other side, treating them as commodities waiting to be plucked from shop shelves, would have stiffened the back of even the ones thinking of abandoning the ship.

The BJP’s siren call may also have failed to work because the Congress in Karnataka is immensely more resourceful than its counterpart in Goa. In Manipur, the outgoing CM Ibobi Singh, with 15 years under his belt, would have been no less resourceful, but the helping hand of the security agencies and the state’s umbilical dependence on the Centre proved more than a match in luring Congress and floating MLAs to the BJP corner. Congress’ DK Shivakumar had already experienced a dress rehearsal when the party high command had entrusted him with MLAs from Gujarat on the eve of the Rajya Sabha elections in which Ahmed Patel overcame the Amit Shah challenge.

The Karnataka Government is bound to live on the edge. It may not even require the combined brilliance and machination of Amit Shah-Murlidhar Rao-Ram Madhav to bring it down. But their single-minded pursuit of a chink in the JD (S)-Congress MLAs, with the tacit involvement of the might of the state, cast them as victims and has put the fear of existence in the hearts of other regional leaders. For many of these regional leaders with skeletons in their cupboards, standing up with the Goliaths will be the right insurance against any future troubles from investigating agencies.

This explains Mayawati’s phone call to Deve Gowda, counselling him to make peace with the Congress. More than the cries of encouragement from the sidelines by regional leaders, this phone call is of the highest significance. Mayawati shares the same back history of extreme acrimony with the Samajwadi Party (SP), its main non-BJP rival in UP, as HD Deve Gowda does with the Congress during his stint as PM at the Centre.

Surely, Mayawati would not be unaware of the unseemly manner in which the Deve Gowda government was sought to be pulled down even if the boorishness did not measure up to the SP’s attempt to assault her. And once she advised Gowda to turn the chapter, it will be incumbent on her to walk the talk in UP. An upcoming  SP-BSP-Congress 'mahagathbandhan' in UP will be the direct byproduct of the Karnataka development.

This effect will be felt in all states where the BJP faced a fragmented opposition. The regional parties would have sniffed that the Congress, with its back to the wall, will be in a position to concede substantial space in their strongholds for alliances with them in order to present a combined front to the BJP.

Worse than being moral losers, Karnataka has inflicted political damage on both the Congress and the BJP. The BJP’s think-tank that appeared invincible, from Goa to Gujarat, seems all too human with its attendant frailty of miscalculating from time to time.

As the Mayawati phone call and the beeline to attend the swearing in of the JD(S)-Congress government shows, the BJP’s winner-takes-all approach has made the Chandra Babu Naidus and the K Chandrashekar Raos circumspect about their plans for a third front distinct from the UPA and the NDA.

It might also have consigned into the bin the CPI (M) ideologue Prakash Karat’s theory of equidistance from both the BJP and the Congress. West Bengal could even see an unthought-of-combination of Trinamool-Left Front-Congress. Possibilities also open up for deal-making in Odisha, where CM Naveen Patnaik in the past has conceded space to allies, but the Congress will be a novelty.

The unsteady roll of the political dice, the miscalculations and the Supreme Court’s eagle eye have converted Karnataka into a template for the 2019 battle. The Opposition has coagulated earlier than expected.

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