Battle for Vidhana Soudha, Not ValuesBattle for Vidhana Soudha, Not Values
By Murli

Will he? Won't he? By the time you read this, perhaps we will know who has the keys to the Vidhana Soudha. Right now, it is a toss-up between the present CM HD Kumaraswamy and the aspirant to the throne (thorn?), B.S. Yediyurappa.

The twists and turns in the political drama is amusing, to say the least. In the corridors of power, there is no such thing as a smooth transition. No one goes out with a smile. Most of the time, the rulers go kicking all the way. The only time when they leave with a "smile" is when they are kicked out of power by the voters. That is when they have no choice anyway. And the smile is for the cameras.

Yediyurappa is making the rounds of temples, because he doesn't want to take any chances. Wooing god is fine, but how about wooing his fellow MLAs and Ministers? That's an art mastered by his bete noire, Sri Deve Gowda, who has been slogging it out for his son. It's a job he has done before; he has shown that he will leave no stone unturned to smoothen the way for his son. Psst. Does anyone remember his rantings against the Congress (against the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) about dynastic power in the eighties?

Till now, Kumaraswamy played the role of a gentleman in politics; now, it's time for the other role. A rebel in politics? It has a nice ring to it and he'll love this description. But how you see the role varies from person to person. For his own partymen, he is the twice-turned saviour. Saviour of what? Power. Not principles. His MLAs, Ministers - and Daddy - want him to continue in power so they can continue to enjoy its trappings. For the BJP, he is the Great Betrayer. A friend turned foe.

From the point of view of the common man, it appears to be Advantage BJP. After all, the issue is not at all complicated, despite the best efforts of the Gowda clan to make it seem so. Twenty months ago, the JD(S) and the BJP came together in Karnataka and accepted Kumaraswamy as CM, under the express condition that the former would hand over power to the latter, in the second half of its government. On Oct 2, the birth anniversary of the greatest man of truth the world has ever seen, we saw a big lie being played out in the State. HDK tried to escape keeping his side of the "deal" with all kinds of justifications: The agreement was only between two "individuals", even Lord Krishna had mouthed a lie in the Bhagavad Gita and he was only a mortal, the BJP had humiliated him, and so on and so forth.

All this doesn't alter the fact that there was a deal, and a deadline. Politics may be the art of the possible, but there is honour even among thieves.

HDK's utterances that the BJP is behaving a childish way is indeed revealing. In that case, how would be describe a person not keeping his word? Very wise?

Now, speculation is rife that the JD(S) will manage to cling on to power, with Congress support from outside. So, the old enemy will be the new best friend of the JD(S) and bail it out, while the old friend will become the new enemy and sit out in the opposition.

Actually, it'll be a good thing if the BJP cools its heels in the opposition benches and bides its time for the present. If the Congress gangs up again with the JD(S), the government would not last and elections will be imminent, sooner than later. It will be interesting to see how these two parties face the electorate and seek their votes.

Sometimes the ordinary folks are the most prescient. Commenting on the political chessgame, an autorickshaw driver remarked that the main reason why the Congress wanted to gang up with the JD(S) was to make up enough funds for the next elections. Once it has enough in the kitty, it would pull the plug on the government and extract its vengeance on the latter which had similarly ditched it before allying with their common enemy, the BJP.

As for the BJP, it can rightly play the role of a victim to perfection, and go all out to exploit the sympathy factor. The point however is, it will have to guard its fences until elections, and ensure there are no defections in its ranks. Having tasted power, its MLAs and Ministers would be wary of facing the electorate and would much rather prefer the air conditioned corridors of power to the hustle and bustle of an early election. Will it be able to hold on till then and ward off the wily Gowda's antics?