In normal circumstances, the Karnataka post-election battle of numbers would have been viewed as yet another disagreeable muddle, the likes of which India has experienced on innumerable occasions. It would have been interesting but hardly worth the carpet-bombing coverage the country has witnessed on the news channels.
The difference is on two counts. First, the Karnataka drama has been transformed into a facet of national politics. There is a positioning game underway for the 2019 general election. The BJP is intent on demonstrating that its march through the whole of India is unstoppable. Having established a firm foothold in Assam and the rest of North-east India, an area where the saffron flag was a novelty in the past, the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah army is now intent on establishing its hold in southern India, Karnataka being the gateway.
The Opposition on the other hand is anxious on two counts. First, the post-election combination of the third party and the second party is a possible template for what they hope will happen after 2019 — a grand combination of all anti-BJP forces, united by a common concern for secularism. Secondly, for the beleaguered Congress in particular, the loss of Karnataka is too major a blow to countenance. Rather than risk being reduced to what Modi mocked as Punjab-Puducherry-Parivar and being resource-starved for 2019, the Congress would rather get a toehold at any cost, even if it involves participating in — what may turn out to be — an ATM Government.
As the BJP has failed to muster the numbers, the moot point is: should the party have staked a claim to form a Government , knowing fully well that the other side had more numbersIJ Should it not have taken the high moral ground and opted to sit in Opposition, knowing fully well that the inverted pyramid model of Government formation tends to be woefully short-livedIJ On the other hand, why concede the battle to the enemy without at least a fightIJ
These questions are not unique. In 1996, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as leader of the single largest party, was invited by the President to form a Government . He accepted, despite knowing that he lacked the numbers. For a few days, the BJP tried — rather amateurishly, I may add — to persuade other non-Congress parties to support Vajpayee. When it was clear it was a hopeless project, the party extracted full mileage through a dramatic resignation speech of Vajpayee, a speech that elevated his stature and was a factor in the BJP coming to power in 1998.
It is doubtful that Yeddyurappa has the same oratorical skills as Vajpayee. And as he has failed to pip Kumaraswamy to the post in the numbers, he is most likely to be seen as a martyr by his core lingayat controversy. But overall, the projection is that Modi and Shah were thwarted by a determined “secular” Opposition. The BJP’s defeat has become an occasion for “secular” triumphalism, just as his victory will have generated the same elation among the Modi supporters.
How the final outcome of the trust vote will influence political thinking in Karnataka in the next year will depend on whether the BJP’s argument that it sought to abide by the spirit of the Assembly election mandate is more persuasive than the claim that the BJP has to be stopped from winning another State at all cost.
From the BJP’s perspective which option — being in Government or Opposition — is preferableIJ There are no clear cut answers. Winning the trust vote would have naturally involved moves that would be seen as somewhat dodgy. Yet, as Indira Gandhi often demonstrated, the electorate always nurture a grudging respect for those who can beat the odds, ethics being no bar in war. If the battle is all about defeating the Congress — and, by implication, the Old Establishment that is putting up a spirited resistance to Modi’s dominance of Indian politics — the challenge was always worth accepting.
The real issue is how the BJP can put the Congress in the doghouse. That is where political communications is all-important. Now as the JD(S)-led Government is imminent, the BJP will have to go to town with the message that the Congress is brazen, shameless and insatiably power hungry; that it has learnt absolutely nothing from the electoral drubbing it received; and that it is shameless enough to re-appoint former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as legislative Party leader. Just as much as it needs to show how the spirit of the mandate for change was violated, it will have to direct its artillery fire against the Congress. The importance of the Congress lies not merely in its brand name but the fact that the party is still the rallying point for a very powerful section of the Old Establishment that wants Modi out as soon as possible. Weaken the Congress and the rest is a relative pushover.
There is little opprobrium likely to be attached to Kumaraswamy. The JD(S) set about to win the day despite coming third and it has done so. There is little point targeting him, just as there was little point assaulting Madhu Koda, the one-man brigade who ended up as Chief Minister. The guilty party as always was the Congress. The Karnataka experience shows that nothing has changed. Power is the glue that keeps the Congress alive. Take it away and, hopefully, the Ganga and Cauvery will be cleaned.