ENARADA, Hubli, 14th Jan 2014
By Mathihalli Madan Mohan
The home coming of the KJP President and former Chief Minister, Yeddyurappa is basically a matter of political compulsion rather than any meeting of estranged minds in BJP.
It was Enarada (United You Stand… 31st May 2013 http://enarada.com/?p=6502 ) which had first indicated the imperative necessity of the coming together of the main BJP and the two splinter groups headed by Yedyyurappa and BSR Congress. This was a clear and categorical message given by the Karnataka electorate in the 2013 assembly elections.
The electorate punished the BJP by making it suffer erosion in its vote strength to the extent of 25 lakhs and showed Yeddurappa his place as anticlimax to all words bravado that the latter had uttered on coming to power on his own strength. However there was a silver lining in the message. It offered olive hopes of salvaging the lost ground. The BJP and the two splinter groups namely the KJP and the BSR Congress had received combined votes of 101 lakh votes which were much more than what the united party had received in 2008 election. This would put the party in a striking distance of its rival Congress which was ahead by 13 lakh votes. Incidentally in the 2009 loksabha election, the BJP had secured 102.28 lakh votes
The writing on the wall was very clear for anybody who cared to read. It was that the three parties, the main party and two splinter groups have are too weak to take on Congress if they remain divided and go their own way. But if they come together they have every chance of giving a good fight to the Congress and prevent the runaway success the Congress has been hoping based on the voting pattern of the 2013 election.
But it has taken these many months for the message sink in the minds of the powers that be in the party at the state and national level to take the long overdue decision. Initially Yeddyurappa raised lot of tantrums, as has been wont to him putting lot of conditions and suitable accommodation for him and his followers in the new arrangement.
But today the hard realities of politics have made him stomach the pride and the parent party to forget the treacherous role played by the latter in harming the party politically. But the most important has been the imperative necessity of safeguarding its base on the eve of the forthcoming loksabha election, where the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi needs all the support. The BJP had won 19 of the 28 loksabha seats in 2009. (The Congress on the other hand got lowly six seats, its lowest tally in the recent years, with the JDS taking three, of which two seats had been lost to Congress in the recent bye elections from Mandy and Bangalore Rural). And the minimum that the party wants in the context of the national challenges that awaits it is to try to retain the number if not improve on its performanance at this hour of trial. Every seat that the BJP loses in Karnataka would to that extent weaken the campaign of Narendra Modi for mopping up support to make the party to reach the goal of power in New Delhi. On the other hand, the Congress is expected to go all out to limit the BJP’s forays in Karnataka, which incidentally would help the party to better its prospects in the election under the stewardship of the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi.
The mood of bon homie noticed in the BJP office the other day, cannot gloss over the fact that till the other day, the feuding factions had been indulging in a mutual game of name calling. Yeddyurppa returned to the party hold without placing any conditions and the state leadership of the BJP made a gesture of “extending invitation” to the former Chief Minister for his home coming. Yeddyurappa makes a candid admission that leaving the party was a mistake. And both the groups offer open apologies for the mistakes of the past and strive work unitedly to achieve the political goal.
So far so good. The question is how enduring is the effusion of good will. Would it go beyond the loksabha poll regardless of the outcome? This assumes significance in the context of the ground realities of the current political profile of the party in Karnataka. The state unit stands clearly divided between the two camps owing allegiance to B S Yeddyurappa and Mr. AnanthKumar, one of the national general secretaries of the BJP.
The history of the political growth of the BJP in Karnataka reveals that the party has prospered whenever the duo was together and the party has suffered when they have turned as mutual antagonists. In the post ninety periods, they teamed up well to gradually lead the party to its maiden win in the assembly election of 2008.
When the party was firmly on politically ascendant path, the duo fell apart mainly to seek individual political aggrandisement. The effort to separate their areas of working, making Ananthkumar to work at the national level, while the Yeddyurappa got the fiefdom of the state did not help matters in any way. Both began pursuing their own agenda. Yeddyurappa camp played the lingayat card, by claiming that only a lingayat can lead the party and non lingayat like Ananthkumar cannot. And the edifice built brick by brick by the duo fell apart like house of cards as happened in the 2013 assembly election.
Both are politically ambitious and they have no place for each other in their political game. Will they be back to their old game, once the party salvages its position?
Ones guess is as good as another.
The second question if feuding factions may put on an united face? Would it carry conviction to the electorate making them repose the trust once again, after being let down badly already?
(Posted on January 14 , 2014 @ 3 pm)
(Author is a Senior Journalist and Columnist. Mobile: +91 94480 74872 Email : madan.mm@gmail.com)
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