If there is one message that has come through clearly during Karnataka’s current political crisis, it is this: the BJP is a divided house and the cracks run very deep. Unless something is done to paper over the cracks in double quick time, October 11, when chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has been asked by governor H.R. Bhardwaj to prove his majority in Assembly, might spell the end of Karnataka’s third political option. And the crisis that began when 19 MLAs were flown out to neighbouring Tamil Nadu may see matters come to a head.
Despite its early promise of being a “government with a difference”, the 28 months that the first BJP government in South India has been in power has been marked by the once monolithic party’s biggest failing — infighting. It demonstrates once more that when the politician comes within sniffing distance of power, his penchant for greed cuts across party lines. A pity as this is the BJP’s first shy at governance, at flying solo, and where it had promised so much but delivered so little.
That it is the third time in less than 11 months that Mr Yeddyurappa’s government has faced a rebellion from within its own ranks raises several questions. Even if the BJP top brass somehow manages to quell this bout of dissidence and gets back to business as usual, the alarming frequency with which different groups with varying axes to grind bring the government so close to the brink of collapse must remain a huge cause of disquiet at the party headquarters in New Delhi. What’s more, the cause for the derailment has been the same every time. While last November’s putsch was the brainchild of the powerful Reddy mining magnates who used their considerable clout with the BJP top brass and Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj to force Mr Yeddyurappa to move out key bureaucrats, as well as key advisers, the second attempt at destabilising the BSY government was moved by a similar impetus. Despairingly, so is the third.
This time the disgruntled, who had waited in the wings for long, whipped up a frenzy against the CM immediately after an ill-advised Cabinet expansion that saw the reinduction of two of his closest confidantes at the expense of other hopefuls. It’s all too clear that Mr Yeddyurappa must go back to the drawing board and re-examine whether it is his style of leadership that needs a course correction. Surely he is aware that the BJP’s national leaders see him as the key to widening the saffron footprint in the South. Surely he is aware too that in a state like Karnataka, riven by a cauldron of conflicting pressure groups who put caste and religion above all else, these are troubled waters that rival political parties like the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) will always fish in for electoral gain.
While the Congress, with its voteshare dwindling, has said over and over that it had no role to play in the current destabilisation of the BSY government, and that the BJP’s only southern dispensation will fall from the weight of its own contradictions, its leaders can barely hide their glee as the crisis lurches to its predictable denouement. The smaller JD(S) could well be the spider in the web, hoping to break the BJP and form a minority government with Congress support from the outside. But with the BJP throwing all its pointmen, including former rebel-turned-BSY ally Janardhan Reddy to woo the rebels back into the fold, all eyes will be riveted on October 11. On Manic Monday, the chief minister must ensure that all his 123 MLAs — BJP and Independents — come home to vote. And that the numbers tilt in his favour.