Coalition politics has not really jelled well in Karnataka and similar to the difficulties encountered by the first of the coalition government’s between 2004 and 2008, the government of H.D. Kumaraswamy has faced the same music similar to what the Janata Dal (Secular) did in the past decade in playing around with the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. For a State which propounded the theory of value-based politics under the leadership of then Chief Minister late Ramakrishna Hegde, it is now vested interests-based politics with legislators elected on a party ticket criss-crossing to their whims and fancies based on a variety of factors rather than worry about the provisions of the anti-defection law as enshrined in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
If the Congress and the JD(S) have to be blamed for the poor governance of the State over the past year thanks to infighting in their respective political parties and between themselves as well, the BJP has to be blamed in an equal measure with the State-level leaders of the party keen on getting to the seat of power, irrespective of the means. Political parties and their leaders have taken the voters for granted largely owing to the fractured mandate but for which the JD(S) could not have merely got to the seat of power with 37 members in a Legislative Assembly comprising 224 members but also having its leader, H.D. Kumaraswamy, as the Chief Minister.
At the present juncture, Karnataka is in the news for all the wrong reasons, with politics touching a new low what with sections of legislators of the two party ruling combine — the Congress and the JD(S) — stooping to get to positions of power and authority even as the BJP is working overtime with a one-point agenda of gaining a majority on the floor of the Assembly. Payment of money to the legislators concerned in return for their support has also been raised on the floor of the Assembly. Attaining a wafer-thin majority will not really help the BJP since it is only fishing in troubled waters.
The coalition government has landed in a mess thanks to the shadow-boxing between the H.D. Deve Gowda family and the former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The Kumaraswamy-led coalition government has been in serious trouble for over a month, with a section of the legislators of the ruling parties submitting their resignation from the membership of the Assembly even as Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar is yet to accept the resignations on the grounds that the legislators concerned have to call on him in person and convince him on the legitimacy of their resignation.
Even as all the three political parties have spent time in sequestering their legislators in various resorts, all development activities have come to a standstill with the bureaucrats playing truant and Ministers and chairmen of the government boards and corporations have stayed away from their offices. The manner in which chartered aircraft are being used to ferry legislators and the expenditure being incurred for the legislators’ stay in plush resorts and hotels are a reflection of the money available for political expenditure, leave alone the lack of ethics and values in the system. For all the claims of working for the welfare of the people, it should be noted that the common people of the State will be paying a heavy price for the quality of politics indulged in by the people for whom they voted.
(The writer is Senior Fellow, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy)