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Congress : Karnataka deals another blow to scam-hit party

	January 23, 2006

Congress President Sonia Gandhi is likely to meet former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) chief H.D. Deve Gowda today in a last ditch effort to save the Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka. The meeting would come at the end of a week of swift and dramatic developments which reduced the Dharam Singh Ministry in the state to a minority.



Reports say that the meeting may take place today (Jan. 23) after Sonia Gandhi’s return from Hyderabad, where she is attending the Congress plenary.



Sources say that Deve Gowda has placed a set of demands before the Congress that he wants fulfilled if he is to try and pull his son Kumaraswamy and his supporters back into the coalition fold. His demands reportedly include having the Chief Minister’s post given to the JD(S) as also key portfolios like Finance, Revenue and Irrigation, and an end to Congress moves to ally with suspended JD(S) MLAs for Panchayat governance.



According to sources, Deve Gowda’s demands also include his being considered for the country’s Vice Presidency, when the vacancy arises and his elder son, Ravenna, being made a Cabinet Minister at the Centre.



Earlier in the week, after weeks of reports of differences between the Congress and the JD(S) on how their coalition government in Karnataka was functioning, a majority of the JD(S) legislators led by Deve Gowda’s son, H.D. Kumaraswamy had walked out of the party and entered into a power-sharing agreement with the opposition BJP. With Kumaraswamy claiming the support of 46 of the 58 JD(S) legislators, his faction and the BJP, with its 79 MLAs, had a clear majority in the 224-member Assembly. Under the power-sharing agreement, Kumaraswamy was to be the Chief Minister for the next 20 months followed by a BJP leader taking charge for the remaining 20 months of the Assembly’s five-year tenure. Wednesday’s revolt by a section of the JD(S) came as a rude shock to the Congress which was banking upon the view that Deve Gowda and his JD(S) will not ally with a supposedly communal party like the BJP.



Kumaraswamy and JD(S) MLAs supporting him as well as BJP legislators met the Governor to stake claim to form the Government. Governor T.N. Chaturvedi assured them that he would go strictly in accordance with the Constitutional provisions in dealing with their demand. But a day later, his decision to direct Chief Minister Dharam Singh to seek a vote of confidence in the Assembly on or before Jan. 27, came as a shock to the Kumaraswamy faction and the BJP. They were hoping for a quick response to their plea and thought that the Governor would not give more than two or three days to the Dharam Singh Government to prove its majority. The nine days given to Dharam Singh, they claimed, would give the Government an opportunity for horse-trading and bringing pressure on the JD(S) legislators to change their stand.



Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said that the Supreme Court in the recent Jharkhand case had come out in favour of three days time for proving majority. He said, “In the Karnataka case where the Assembly is already in session, even three days are not required, one or two days would have sufficed.” Another senior BJP leader Pramod Mahajan felt that 24 to 72 hours would have been sufficient.



Faced with the need to keep their flock together, protected from ‘allurements’ from the Congress, the Kumaraswamy faction of the JD(S) and the BJP have spirited away their MLAs to havens inside and outside the state to prevent any ‘poaching’ during the run upto the scheduled voting in the Assembly by Jan. 27. A contingent of 68 BJP MLAs from Karnataka has landed up in neighbouring Tamil Nadu where they have been housed in various hotels in Chennai. The Kumaraswamy faction MLAs have gone to Goa.





Deve Gowda’s ambiguous role



In the midst of the crisis, Deve Gowda has been changing his stance. The day his son, Kumaraswamy, had decided to ally with the BJP, he had called it “the saddest” day of his life. But just two days later, he was saying that his third son had done nothing wrong, though still claiming that he supports the Congress-JD(S) coalition in the state. His ambiguous stand was also reflected in the utterances of senior JD(S) leaders who met at the former Prime Minister’s residence in Bangalore on Friday, Jan. 20 to review the situation.



While M.P. Prakash and D. Manjunath said they would support Gowda against the alliance, M. Rajasekharamurthy defended Kumaraswamy. P.G.R. Sindhia, who two days ago called the JD(S)-BJP combination an unholy alliance, made a U-turn and asked, “What’s wrong if Kumaraswamy is trying to avenge the humiliation meted out to his father ?”



While a crest-fallen Gowda looked on, Rajasekharamurthy was all praise for Kumaraswamy. “He has proved he is a man with guts Congress has been heaping insults on us, and we did nothing, but rue. Kumaraswamy has taken the bull by its horns. We all should support and guide him instead of asking him to return,” sources quoting Rajasekharamurthy said. He explained to Gowda the circumstances under which Kumaraswamy took the decision to sink the Dharam Singh Ministry. Rajasekharamurthy’s efforts to convince Gowda have brought cheer to Kumaraswamy. He told reporters : “He has endorsed my actions and told me that he would convince my father about my action. He has asked me not to back off.”





Dharam Singh speaks of exit option



While Deve Gowda and Chief Minister Dharam Singh have been speaking of saving the Government, there is also talk of an exit option in the air by Chief Minister Dharam Singh. He told reporters in Bangalore on Jan. 20, “I have an option to exit.” But he said that he cannot take any individual decision and would have to wait for the Congress high command’s permission. He said the party high command had not given him any direction so far.



The Chief Minister’s optimism was rooted in Hyderabad, where the Congress central leadership has gathered for a three-day party plenary. AICC general secretary Ambika Soni said, “There is a possibility that Sonia Gandhi and Deve Gowda may talk after the plenary.”



Though Deve Gowda has been critical of Kumaraswamy in public, saying he did not support his son’s idea of forming a coalition with the BJP, it is no secret that he had been unhappy with the Congress alliance for some time. In fact, he had even told the Congress that he could opt out of the alliance after February 8. It is another thing that Kumaraswamy did not wait till then. He showed neither any semblance of change of mind or remorse for revolting against his father, Deve Gowda. “We are not going back to the Congress, we are not interested in any formula of that party. We just want to provide good governance. Only time will convince my father that I have done no wrong,” he said.



Deve Gowda, on his part, said that he had no hesitation in meeting Sonia Gandhi. “If there are small areas of differences, we will discuss them. I have never said that I have closed the door (for talks).”



Gowda told reporters after a meeting with senior colleagues of the JD(S) that it was not too late to force his son to return to his fold. “Kumaraswamy is my son; wait and see,” he said.



Dharam Singh too chose his words with care while speaking about Gowda and his son. “Gowda had whole-heartedly supported my Government.” He said that Gowda and the Congress had forged the alliance only to keep the BJP out of power.





Congress kept eyes shut



Observers say that the crisis facing the Dharam Singh Government in Karnataka is a result of the Congress and the Chief Minister keeping their eyes shut to the emerging scenario in the state. The party leadership’s first mistake was that - having been at the receiving end of H.D. Deve Gowda’s pressure tactics, particularly since the results of the Lok Sabha polls came in - it mistook the palpable signs of rumblings within the JD(S) as just another bout of muscle flexing from the Vokkaligga leader. It accepted the assessment of the Chief Minister that his Government was absolutely safe.



Even when it finally woke up to the impending trouble, it chose to negotiate with Deve Gowda while it was his son who had taken over the reins of the JD(S) group.



The party leadership, after frantic negotiations with Deve Gowda, agreed to his pre-condition that the Congress will have no truck with the renegade JD(S) leader, Siddaramaiah. But it was too late. While Deve Gowda did try to talk to his MLAs, his son Kumaraswamy managed to lead them away. He did that partly by invoking the fear - not wholly contrived - that the Congress would use the reprieve for Dharam Singh only to force early Assembly election.



Fear stemmed from the “we-can-go-it-alone” assertions of the Congress camp - encouraged by its smart showing in the local polls - and making little bones of its intention to ally with Siddaramaiah.