Mathihalli Madan Mohan
Senior Journalist and Columnist
HUBLI 580 032 ( Mobile-94480-74872)
HUBLI, 27th
July 2012
:“
Welcome to Vidhana Soudha.
If you are a Lingayat Press 1,
If your are a Gowda , press 2,
if you
are a Kuruba Press 3,
if, you
are a Idiga, Press 4,
if you are
a Dalit , Press 5,
if you are a muslim, Press 6.
if you
are a Christian, press 7.
If you
are none of this, better disconnect and join the queue for Dharma Darshana of
the Chief Minister and take your chance.
Thanks for calling”.
Don’t be
surprised if you hear this message from Vidhana Soudha exchange in the days to
come, as the process of political churning of polarization of caste politics,
set in motion by the present BJP dispensation in Karnataka is taken to logical
conclusion.
At the
moment it remains confined to the internal struggle for
power within BJP. It will not be a matter of surprise if other parties follow
suit, to make Karnataka join the ranks of the peers in this political craft
like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar .
What is
however special to Karnataka is that the process gets initiated by a national
party like the BJP, while it has been corner stone of the policy of political
aggrandizement by the regional parties elsewhere overtaking the main stream political
parties like the Congress and BJP.
The author
of the historical process in Karnataka is none other than the disgruntled B S
Yeddyurappa who is desperate to regain
the political primary in Karnataka ever since he was forced to quit office in
the wake of his indictment by the Karnataka Lokayukta in illegal mining and
other scams. It has got an indirect endorsement by the party bosses in
Newdelhi, who have been singularly helpless in curbing the political intransigence
of the former Chief Minister., for the imperative necessity of keeping the
first saffron government south of Vindhyas in office by hook or by crook.
It was
Yeddyurappa who started overtly a playing a Lingayat card of all the lingayat
politicians who had occupied the post of the Chief Minister in the state. It
has been a mystery as to whatever prompted Yeddyurappa at the pinnacle of his
popularity as an outstanding mass leader had to play a Lingayat card to reduce him
from the high pedestal of a mass leader to that of a leader of one single
caste. He has lost more than anything gained. With his political career in the
dumps as a consequence of his indictment by Lokayukta in illegal mining and
other scams and the plethora of the cases pending in the courts, and the CBI
making the matters worse by starting investigation in the illegal mining
activities, Yeddyurappa finds himself in deep legal mess and consequents has a
long period of compulsory waiting before he can hope to return to the active
politics.
Yeddyurappa
all of a sudden started playing a lingayat card after he took over as the Chief
Minister in 2008. He started portraying himself as the unquestioned political
leader of the lingayats, the prominent community in Karnataka, which has a pan
Karnataka presence, with Northern half of Karnataka being the sheet anchor of
the support. Yeddyurappa started courting the religious heads among the
community and was liberal in doling grants to the institutions managed by them.
If the move
was aimed at providing himself with a shield to fight his political battle, it
obviously failed. The swamijis were in the forefront whenever his throne was in
trouble due to internal problems within the party on occasions. But it was
hardly of avail, since he could not prevent his ouster eleven months ago
despite the campaigning done by the lingayat swamijis. As a matter of fact, the
swamijis got their reputation tarnished
by the manner in which they winked at
the corruption and went in vain to save a
government steeped in corruption and of bunch of ministers neck deep in it
merely because they happened to be lingayats.
. The interplay of the competitive
nature of the caste politics currently underway was in full play during the
formation of the third BJP ministry headed by the new Chief Minister Jagadish
Shettar so that the top post remains with lingayats. The vokkaligas suddenly
discovered that Sadananda Gowda, who was facing the heat, was a fellow
vokkaliga and rallied round to his effort in a futile bid to stave off his
ouster. Though vokkaligas could not save the chair of Sadananda Gowda, they
gave enough hints that they are also a force to be reckoned with in Karnataka
politics. It was not without significant, that the Devegowda Kumarasway duo
which was vocal in the criticism of the Yeddyurappa government had suddenly
grown soft during the Sadananda Gowdas eleven month regime. The transformation
was attributed widely to the vokkalinga connection.
The post of
the Chief Minister having gone to a lingayat, the vokkaligas and the Kurubas,
the two other powerful castes, insisted and succeeded in creating specially two
posts of the Deputy Chief Ministers for the first time in Karnataka politics
and went to Eswarappa (Kuruba), and R Ashok, (Vokkalinga). It is expected that
the post of the party president, which may be vacated by Eswarappa on his
induction into the cabinet, is likely to go to “others” category.
To make the power sharing arrangement more
authentic, both Easwarappa and R Ashok (Vokkaliga) were specifically sworn as
the Deputy Chief Ministers, even though the Constitution does not recognize the
office which is a political office and not Constitutional
position. Normally aspirants are sworn in as minister and later get designated
as the Deputy Chief Ministers by the Chief Minister. Will this be a precedent
for all the ministry making exercises in future remains to be seen. . The pattern of the distribution of the
portfolios has been done according to the same formula, with the powerful caste
denominations walking away with plum portfolios while the insignificant groups
have been forced to accept the minor and less important ones.
Though many
lingayats had adorned the office of the Chief Minister in Karnataka, none had
portrayed themselves as the champions of the caste till Yeddyurappa came on the
scene. Initially Yeddyurappa was not so but came up the ladder through hard and
sustained organizational work, and by brandishing the caste card. The lingayat
fixation was an attribute he acquired later on.
In
Karnataka, the lingayats dominate the northern half of the state, while their
presence in the southern half is not that prominent .in terms of numbers. In
the lingayat dominated northern part of the state, the BJP with a lingayat at the hem of
affairs could hardly develop any political moorings.
The
lingayats of the region, came to the BJP fold more by accident than design as
the development show. As a matter of fact, there was no lingayat politician who
could command the allegiance of the lingayats and emerge as their political
voice. It was not any lingayat politician but a bramhin, late Ramakrishna
Hegde, who amongst all commanded the respect and trust of the lingayats as a
whole in general and in northern half of the state in particular.
Hegde chose
to deny himself what would have been a fresh lease of life for his political
career when he resisted the pressure by his followers in the new political
outfit the United Janata Dal to take over as the Chief Minister in place of J H
Patel, who was reigning then. This he
did so because he did not want to hurt the lingayat sentiments.
The BJPs continued drought of political
support came as a byproduct of the electoral tie-up between the BJP and the JDU
to fight the Congress in the nineties. Ramakrishna Hedges demise created a political
vacuum and the BJP and Yeddyurappa moved
in to fill the bill. And this is what
enabled Yeddyurappa to claim as a lingayat
leader.
This lingayat
fixation and narcisst tendencies have contributed substantially to the
precipitous fall of Yeddyurappa from political grace.
When the
BJP high command forced Yeddyurappa to quit in the light of the Lokayukta
report, Yeddyurappa ego was badly hurt. He could not countenance his exit from
power. Since then he has been ranting and raving for the restoration of his own
political hegemony and has been bemoaning the loss of political primacy for the
lingayats.
He has only
a single point formula. He should have the political power either by dejure or
defacto manner. If he cannot get power on his own directly, he must enjoy it
through proxy. This was the rationale behind his move to get his own nominee
Sadananda Gowda installed as his successor eleven month. Gowda a low profile
political functionary was happened to be
one his confidants and a safe bet to be trusted
unlike his another confidant Jagadish Shettar, a fellow lingayat, who
had strayed away from the his path. This
he achieved after virtually brow beating the high command for the selection of
successor through voting.
But he got
wary of Gowda soon, as the latter showed signs of moving independent of the
orbit of Yeddyurappa. Yeddyurappa
himself launched a virulent campaign to bring down the man he had put in office
sometime ago. He blackmailed the high command to have his way again. And this
time Yeddyurappa chose to bring back Shettar once estranged, back into the fold
to act as his proxy. In his overt zeal to get back the power, Yeddyurappa has
introduced in Karnataka politics, the canker of caste politics, which is
expected to change the political scenario altogether in the days to come.]
Eom 0930hrs. 27,07.2012
.
