Writings On Karnataka Wall : BJP, Get Your Reading Glasses Right !

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BY R.K.MISRA

High voltage can trip both circuit breakers and election results. As happened in Karnataka where all the kings horses and all the king’s men could not put BJP in power again.

The piece de resistance of the ceremonial supper delivered by experienced cooks under the expert  supervision of their own master chef  had tickled the palate in the Gujarat polls, December last, but  failed to enthuse diners in the ‘gateway to the south’ this Saturday. If demolition drives and the bulldozer rides baked a bonanza in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, the polarizing pot pourri of hijab and Tipu Sultan brought to a boil with ‘Bajrangbali ‘ being substituted for Bajrang dal was a gastronomic disaster.

The flavour of Karnataka in the taste of India shall linger for some time to come even as a servile visual media makes a desperate attempt  to distract popular attention with local self-government election results of Uttar Pradesh and the party in power promotes movies to suit its political predilections.

The results have brought numerous national issues to the fore but what is a matter of discussion within the BJP circles in Gujarat is the inherent usefulness of requisitioning manpower from  this state for campaigning in Karnataka. Party cadres and leaders from the PM’s home state including 40 party leaders, over 20 legislators and  two  ministers and a handful of former ministers along with a legion of cadres had been  camping in the southern state for months. Unable to adjust to the distinct dietary habits , an assortment of cooks were rushed to shore up their efforts. Ploys that had worked well in Gujarat were put to use like door- to- door donation drive for the Ram-mandir at Ayodhya, distributing pamphlets and the like. The output has hardly been worth talking about.

 The large scale deployment from Gujarat was done because the party national leadership had decided to implement the ‘page pramukh’ model which had worked  successfully  in Modi-Shah’s home state. The leaders and cadres were imparted training before their deployment in Karnataka. The model entails a party leader being put in-charge of every page of the electoral roll with a team that will ensure creating  rapport with the identified voters, and ensuring that they cast their vote and in favour of the saffron outfit. If successful this model was to be  replicated countrywide. The results point to abject failure of the experiment in Karnataka.

Besides the fact that the BJP chose to focus the thrust of their election campaign firstly on the persona of  prime Minister Modi, national issues and communal polarization to the detriment of  local issues, the fact remains that the BJP move to destabilise the Congress-JD(S) government  did not go down well with the voters. This distaste found resonance in the record majority handed out by the electorate to the Congress with the stage already set by Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat-Jodo yatra.

Prime Minister Modi, of all persons, should have known better from the Congress experience in Gujarat since he was one of the key players in the game. It was for the first time in 1995 that the BJP came to power in Gujarat on its own steam with the installation of Keshubhai Patel as chief minister. However, shortly thereafter Shankersinh Vaghela had rebelled, walking out with a large chunk of party legislators to Khajuraho. A temporary truce was worked out, Patel was replaced with Suresh Mehta as chief minister and Narendra Modi banished out of the state. However the truce did not last and the rebels broke away to form a government  led by Vaghela’s regional outfit with Congress support. In the elections that followed both Vaghela’s outfit and the Congress bit the dust. Earlier in 1990  the Janta party splintered and  the erstwhile Jan Sangh segment which had merged into it broke free to form the BJP.  In Gujarat Chimanbhai Patel had initially  formed the Janata Dal(Gujarat),did away with the BJP and merged his regional set-up into the Congress to continue as chief minister.

The direct result of  these two Congress experiments to thwart the people’s mandate and come to power through the backdoor has been that it is now almost a quarter century that it sits in the parking bay deprived of a seat at the head of the table in Gujarat.

Despite  this firsthand  knowledge, Modi’s BJP chose the shortcut of destabilising elected governments in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh,, Maharashtra and Goa. It has paid the price in Karnataka losing even their toehold in the gateway to the South. In their quest for a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’, they have already engineered a ‘BJP-mukt ‘ Deccan for themselves. If Karnataka symbolizes the mood of the moment, a similar fate  awaits the saffron outfit in both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The writing is on the wall, the BJP just needs to get their reading glasses right !

PS. many of the defectors lost in the ensuing polls as did minister B.C.Nagesh who was instrumental in enforcing a ban on hijab for Muslim students. Kanees Fatima, the hijab protest leader, however, emerged a winner.

(Published on May 16,2023)

http://odishapostepaper.com/edition/4502/orissapost/page/9

http://epaper.lokmat.com/lokmattimes/main-editions/Nagpur%20Main/2023-05-16/6

 

 

 

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