ENARADA, Hubli,
By MATHIHALLI MADAN MOHAN
The former Chief Minister Mr. Yeddyurappa must be unhappiest person, even as the whole nation is agog with excitement over the dawn of the BJP era under the dynamic leadership of Narendra Modi.
The reasons are not too far to seek. Firstly his ego has been bruised over the denial of a ministerial berth in the Modi cabinet, which he thought would be his right and deserved for being the first BJP Chief Minister of Karnataka. Rubbing salt over the wounds has been that two others, Ananth Kumar, his bitterest foe in the party, and Sadananda Gowda, his onetime protégé turned adversary, and a former Chief Minister have got in, instead. Thirdly a slot apparently meant for lingayat community in Karnataka, has gone to an unexpected low profile BJP MP, G M Siddheshwara, (from Davangere) even as Yeddyurappana was prone to project himself as the unquestioned representative of the community.
On the face of it, the villain of piece has been the party leadership, in the combination of Narendra Modi and Rajanath Singh, but in reality, Yeddyurappa has harmed himself more than anybody else. His undoings have been his insatiable hunger for power and craving for grabbing it as early as possible, whenever he happens to miss it for one or other reason and his trait for acting on impulse rather doing so with due diligence and deliberation.
For example in 1999 assembly election, Yeddyurppa then the Leader of Opposition, experienced a shocking defeat in his home turf Shikaripur in Shimoga district. On impulse he announced that he would re-enter Legislature through assembly. But even before the ink could dry, he managed to enter the legislature through the Legislative Council route.
During his third year of his regime as the Chief Minister in 2008, Yeddyurappa found himself mired in maze of cases of corruption and nepotism, in the context of his indictment by the Karnataka a Lokayukta in the illegal mining. It had become imperative to quit on the grounds of propriety and probity in public life. But Yeddyurappa would not buy that and chose to cling to the office. The national party felt that scam tainted Yeddyurppa had become a political liability in the context of its plans to make corruption as an election plank against Congress for the 2014 parliament poll (which was changed to development under Modi, as it transpired later).
Yeddyurappa dodged the issue for a while, before giving in grudgingly, when it was made clear that he could return after getting the charges cleared. He adopted a defiant attitude in the matter of selection of his successors, forced election getting the high command nominee defeated on the first occasion. When he realized that he could not rule by proxy, he turned against his two successors openly berated his own party government and ultimately rebelled to float a separate outfit. The 2013 election, proved to be a disaster not only for him but for his parent party.
When the 2013 poll arithmetic made it imperative for the BJP splinter group to come together for their own and the parent party’s political survival, Yeddyurappas’s insistence of “some position” delayed the process and ultimately he had to walk in unconditionally when the loksabha elections were announced and Modi was named as the Prime Ministerial candidate. And the merger paid dividends as could be seen in from the fact that the party regained the respect it had lost and both the erstwhile renegades Yeddyurappa and B Sriramulu got themselves rehabilitated by becoming the MPs. Yeddyurappa won with a highest margin for anybody in Karnataka.
The second part of the story starts after the loksabha poll results were announced with Modi poised to take over as the Prime Minister. Yeddyurappa and a team of MPs make a sojourn to Delhi to lobby for a berth in the new cabinet. But they were rebuffed by the party leadership, which clearly frowned upon lobbying and bluntly told them to return to their home base.
To Yeddyurappa, personally the message was clear. He could not hope for elevation, unless he was cleared of the court cases pending against him. This came, especially as an anticlimax to the high sounding hyperbolic electioneering done in Shimoga, where it was openly portrayed that a vote for Yeddyurppa was a vote for the future Union Minister.
And here he committed one more faux pas. He wrote a letter to the party’s national leadership saying that instead of berth in Central cabinet, he would like to remain in the state to “serve’ the party. Implicit in the letter was a clear hint for a “suitable position” which under the circumstances is the party president ship which is with Pralhad Joshi. Had been a simple letter meant for the party leadership, it would not have created any problem. But Yeddyurappa got the same released to the media even before the communication reached Newdelhi. This angered the leadership further, which is in a strong position after the landslide victory immune to any kind of pressure tactics. And Yeddyurappa has got his fingers burnt once again politically. A long haul waits for him before good tiding could dawn politically for him.
A bright future political future had beckoned him, six years ago in 2008, when he assumed reigns as the first saffron party Chief Minister, and south of Vindhyas. He was an unchallenged leader within the party and outside too, since Congress was too insipid and rudderless to pose any political challenge. Yeddyurappa was seen as the Modi of the south for the BJP’ political march. It was said that Karnataka was poised to emulate Gujarat under the Modi rule both in governance and political one-upmanship. While Yeddyurappa’s hopes were crumbled within three years, Modi has gone ahead to reach the pinnacle of his political career to ascend the Delhi throne.
It is mainly because of contrast in the styles of working of Narendra Modi and Yeddyurappa. While Modi, is more methodical and systematic in his approach, the just concluded loksabha election, where Modi catapulted from being a Chief Minister of state to the Prime Minister of the country, garnering support from all over the country. But on the other hand Yeddyurappa is totally disorganized and unsystematic in his approach and there is nothing of a political strategy in his armoury. While Modi would do what he promised to do, there is hardly any consistency in Yeddyurappa’s words and deeds.
With all this, perhaps Yeddyurappa has share in the phenomenal success of Modi and BJP in the loksabha election. But for the hara-kiri committed by Yeddyurappa in Karnataka, which led to the defeat of the BJP in the assembly election, it would have been difficult for BJP to come to power at the Centre. For the tradition has it that whoever wins the assembly election in Karnataka, fails to come to power at Centre. If Yeddyurappa were to be a good boy and had worked for the success of the party in the assembly election, perhaps Modi would not have realized the dream of wearing a mantle in New Delhi. And it is because of this that Yeddyurappa deserves accolades both from the party and the Prime Minister Modi.
(Posted on May 28 , 2014 @ 6:30pm)
(Author is a Senior Journalist and Columnist. He can be reached at madan.mm@gmail.com and his Mobile no is +91 94480-74872 )
The views expressed on the website are those of the Columnists/ Authors/Journalists / Correspondents and do not necessarily reflect the views of ENARADA.
