M Gautham Machaiah
In the absence of a clear trend in favour of either the ruling Congress or the principal opposition BJP in the run-up to the Karnataka assembly elections, the third player, HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), is hoping for a fractured mandate where it could emerge the kingmaker, like it did in 2004.
JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy, however, insists that his party will be the king, though he fails to convincingly explain how the magical figure of 113 seats in the 224-member assembly will be achieved. A recent survey by research agency Cfore has predicted that JD(S) tally will actually fall from the present 40 seats to 27.
The JD(S) could have established itself as a strong regional party, especially when the wave of Kannada Swabhimana (pride) is sweeping through the state, but it chose to put the interests of its family members above that of the party. Derisively called the appa-makkala paksha (a party of father and sons), JD(S) has taken dynastic politics to another level.
This is the only family in Karnataka, where both the father and son—Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy—were chief ministers. Another son, H.D. Revanna was a cabinet minister. One daughter-in-law of Deve Gowda entered politics through the district panchayat, while another became an MLA. Now, there are about half-a-dozen claimants from the Gowda family for tickets in the ensuing elections.
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This family fixation has led to a mass exodus from the party which once boasted of some of the tallest leaders of the state. In fact, chief minister Siddaramaiah and some of his key ministers were the mainstay of Janata parivar before they shifted loyalties to Congress. More recently, JD(S) suffered another setback when seven sitting legislators quit the party along with a few other senior leaders like MC Nanaiah to join the Congress.
Though Kumaraswamy is considered an astute administrator with an excellent rapport with the people and party workers, he has failed to establish a credible base outside the party’s traditional stronghold of Mysuru, Mandya and Hassan regions. The party is virtually non-existent in North and coastal Karnataka.
While Kumaraswamy is on record that he would rather prefer fresh elections in the event of a hung assembly, both the Congress and BJP are keeping a safe distance from JD(S) for now as the Gowdas suffer from a trust deficit.
In 2004, when no party could muster a majority of its own. JD(S) first propped up a Congress government led by N. Dharam Singh under an arrangement where both parties would rule the State for two-and-a-half-years each. However, Kumaraswamy grew impatient mid-way, ditched the Congress and crowned himself as chief minister in alliance with his ideological enemy BJP, again under a 50-50 formula. At the end of his term he refused to hand over the baton to BJP and when after much persuasion Yeddyurappa was sworn in as the chief minister, the JD(S) ensured that his government fell within seven days, leading to a spell of President’s rule.
Both the Congress and BJP are dismissive of JD(S) because they do not want to give the party a psychological advantage on the eve of the polls. Nobody wants a repeat of 2004 where democracy was mortgaged to feed the greed for power of one family.
(The author is a political commentator and a senior journalist)
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