The Janata Dal (S) of former prime minister Deve Gowda and his son, former chief minister Kumaraswamy, has had a brief flirtation with power and is looked upon as a crucial element as a third force in the event of a hung assembly this time around.
All eyes are on the Karnataka assembly elections due next month, which promise a titanic battle between the Congress and the BJP. Not only will it be a do or die battle for the Congress under Rahul Gandhi, it will hold out a huge challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, which would have a major bearing on the future of the saffron outfit in the saddle in New Delhi.
There is indeed no denying that both the parties are at the crossroads. The BJP had peaked in the North and the West in the 2014 general elections but is yet to make an appreciable impact in the South and likewise in the East. A win for the party in Karnataka would open up possibilities for it in the South, though in that region, it can only largely ride on the shoulders of possible allies.
The Congress has been tottering along since its near-decimation in the Lok Sabha polls. It has lost power in many states and a win in Karnataka may well trigger a revival for the grand old party, which today appears a poor shadow of its old self. A defeat would virtually dash all hope of its return to power at the Centre in the foreseeable future.
Karnataka has for long had a three-party race between the Congress, the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular). The Janata Dal (S) of former prime minister Deve Gowda and his son, former chief minister Kumaraswamy has had a brief flirtation with power and is looked upon as a crucial element as a third force in the event of a hung assembly this time around. Kumaraswamy is no paragon of virtue. He is prone to making compromises for the sake of power and his integrity has come under a cloud on a few occasions in the rat race that characterises our polity.
Recently, in the Rajya Sabha elections in the State, he was banking on winning one seat for his party of the four at stake but was jolted by seven of his party’s legislators voting for the Congress. Close on the heels of that, the seven MLAs defected to the Congress, making their truck with that party quite obvious. While admitting them into the Congress, Rahul Gandhi made it amply clear that he had no qualms about keeping the Janata Dal (S) at arm’s length. He mocked at the party as a ‘B’ team of the BJP, adding that it should name itself Janata Dal (Sangh Parivar).
Whether this was good or bad politics, only time will tell, but clearly, Rahul has antagonised Kumaraswamy enough to make any post-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (S) difficult, though not impossible. Significantly, octogenarian Deve Gowda has held out an olive branch to the Congress, covering up for Rahul by saying that he was guided by some vested interests.
Evidently, the Congress president is angling for a clear majority but should he not have left the door open for a tie-up with JD (S) in the event of a hung assembly? Isn’t Rahul under-estimating Kumaraswamy’s penchant for wheeling-dealing and his propensity to damage a new enemy?
The BJP, too, does not have pleasant memories of its association with JD (S) when it had supported him as chief minister of a BJP-JD (S) coalition in 2006-07 with a deal that for the second half of the term, the helmsman would be from the BJP, which Kumaraswamy went back on. But it would grab any opportunity to come to power with JD (S) support to keep its prime enemy — the Congress — at bay.
Whether Rahul’s mock at JD (S) had the tacit approval of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is a moot question, but even in the past, Rahul has shown a classic lack of political maturity and has often put his foot in his mouth. It is for that reason that Captain Amrinder Singh had kept Rahul out of his Punjab election campaign, a stratagem that worked beautifully for the party, which otherwise was totally subservient to the ‘high command’ of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi at that time. Indeed, Amrinder rode to power solely on the strength of his own individuality and his own campaign.
Siddaramaiah blazed Amrinder’s path in a limited way when he quietly turned down Rahul’s plan to bring in his close adviser Sam Pitroda as one of the Karnataka nominees for the Rajya Sabha. Yet, having brought Rahul in to campaign in the Assembly elections, he has to take the rough with the smooth. Rahul is no longer vice-president of the party as he was at the time of the Punjab elections. Now, he is the president, and his clout and self-confidence have grown manifold within the party.
It is also a moot point whether Rahul’s eulogy on Tipu Sultan during his election tour of Karnataka would have gone down well with people at large. Indeed, Rahul went out of his way to praise Tipu Sultan who is hated by sections of people in Karnataka. But the jury is not out conclusively on that since there is another section, mainly Muslims, who swear by Tipu.
Rahul’s diatribe against Prime Minister Modi is an extension of what he has been doing in the rest of the country and can be understood in the context of the fact that he is fighting a crucial election. But some of his attacks lack credibility which detracts from the credibility of the party he heads. If he is at all a prime ministerial aspirant, Rahul Gandhi needs to carry greater weight of credibility. He can ill afford to be upstartish and incredible.
Kamlendra Kanwar is a political commentator and columnist. He has authored four books.
