Karnataka debacle should be wake-up call
The outcome of the Karnataka Assembly election 2013 is more of a resounding rejection of the BJP than an enthusiastic endorsement of the Congress by the voters of the State. The party has paid a heavy price for five years of directionless governance, suicidal factionalism and perceived corruption of some of its senior leaders of the State. The people were so disgusted with the state of affairs and feeling so terribly let down by a regime which they voted to power five years ago with high hopes, that they were waiting for the first occasion to teach the party a lesson. There is not a leader in the BJP who did not anticipate the defeat, even if the scale of the debacle must have shocked and surprised some of them. The party is seeking to salvage some pride from the debris by claiming that it chose ‘principles’ over victory — hinting that it secured Mr BS Yeddyurappa's resignation (and won his enmity) as the Chief Minister when he faced charges of corruption, despite knowing that he would wreck the party and the Government out of vengeance. It is a fact that Mr Yeddyurappa, once the BJP's poster boy in Karnataka, has contributed heartily to the rout of the party in this election, just as he had played a stellar role in its remarkable victory in 2008. But what prevented leaders of the BJP and the party's cadre in the State to effectively spread the message among the people that Mr Yeddyurappa's rebellion had been motivated by the desire to protect his tainted imageIJ Why could the party not convince the voters that, because it had taken a ‘principled' decision in seeking Mr Yeddyurappa's resignation as Chief Minister (thereby setting off a chain of events that eventually culminated in its defeat), it must be rewarded for the ‘bold' moveIJ Part of the reason is that the BJP did not have a leader of Mr Yeddyurappa's stature to take the message with force and credibility. After all, Mr Yeddyurappa had dominated the party's political spectrum in the State for years, beginning from time he became the second-in-command of a coalition regime that the JD(S) and the BJP forged. After the collapse of the alliance, Mr Yeddyurappa led the BJP to a thumping win.
But there are other reasons too for the party's failure to recoup from Mr Yeddyurappa's revolt. The people had watched with dismay and disgust the manner in which the Yeddyurappa-led BJP Government had deviated from the task of providing a sound administration to being forever engaged in managing internal wrangling and battling a corrupt image. Many power centres emerged within the State unit of the party in that chaos, with senior central leaders unable to contain the deterioration. These power centres continued to nibble away at the authority of the Chief Minister in siege. Factionalism took such perverse forms that the party finally split — giving rise to Mr Yeddyurappa's Karnataka Janata Party and B Sriramulu's BSR Congress. There was no way the BJP could regain its pre-eminent position with its house divided twice over.
The wise ones in the party will have got the message after the May 8 result. There is no point now in lamenting the debacle and finding excuses for it. The lok Sabha election is due soon, and the BJP will have to put its house in order in the State without delay. Whether that can be achieved by somehow bringing together the powerful elements that have fallen out over the years or by forging ahead with a new team, is a call which the party has to take.