ven as the BJP relishes the absence of competition, the unchecked emasculation of the Opposition does not augur well for a robust democracy.With the fall of the HD Kumaraswamy government following a trust vote on Tuesday, the BJP, the single largest party in the assembly, is expected to form the government. There is still no clarity, however, on the strength of the House, since the Speaker is yet to rule on the resignations of 16 MLAs; their party leaderships have sought their disqualification. It is likely that the Speaker’s action, whichever way he rules, may be challenged in court; the Supreme Court already has a bunch of pleas on the Karnataka crisis to decide. As political parties go through the motions in this bizarre tableau, citizens must endure the embarrassment of watching their representatives duck in and out of resorts and other hideaways.
Beyond the moral dimensions of the crisis and the questions it raises about a host of institutions, including the office of the Speaker and Governor, the events in Karnataka lay out a challenging political predicament, particularly for the Opposition. Karnataka has once again underlined that the BJP’s hunger for political domination is insatiable. Since 2014, the party has been expanding across the country, winning state after state. Under the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the party has come to believe that the winner takes all and has sought to form governments even in the states it failed to win. The Opposition has been slow and clueless in facing up, much less matching or countering, the BJP. In fact, Karnataka was an exception, where the Opposition outwitted the BJP to form a government 14 months ago. The Congress and the JD(S), which fought against each other and finished behind the BJP, joined hands to form government; the Congress’ decision to let the smaller party, the JD(S), occupy the chief minister’s office was perceived to be an indication of the Opposition’s readiness to set aside differences for a larger cause. In retrospect, neither party was willing to make this coalition of unnatural allies work. That it failed to deliver seats in the general election seems to have convinced the Congress that the limited investment it had made in the coalition was not worth it. The BJP’s will to form a government, the contradictions within the coalition and the ambitions of the latter’s legislators seem to have converged in this moment.
The failure of the JD(S)-Congress government to hold up raises larger questions about the Opposition’s capability to put up a united front against an expanding BJP. The glue that held the Opposition together in Karnataka was the fear of the BJP. That no longer seems effective as various Opposition parties, devastated by the May 23 verdict, have moved apart and now seem to act listlessly. Even as the BJP relishes the absence of competition, the unchecked emasculation of the Opposition does not augur well for a robust democracy.
