DKS custody and grey shades in politics

News of the arrest came like a mini-earthquake. But then, it was D K Shivakumar. Calling the former Karnataka minister a troubleshooter for his Congress party does not describe him adequately—the audacity and tenacity with which he, almost single-handedly, fought off the BJP had given him a kind of aura. 

That story has been rudely interrupted now with his arrest, for allegedly dubious financial dealings behind the taxman and ED’s back. Not that anyone should be particularly surprised. The BJP regime upped the ante for dramatic legal action with the way it broke through the impervious shield of P Chidambaram. Secondly, DKS is not exactly known for Gandhian values. He seems to have had a premonition of what was coming his way too. His tweets—Twitter being our public-personal broadcasting service—and his last speech in the Assembly could be seen as a chronicle of a jail-term foretold. 

Nonetheless, the reaction was fierce. In his home ground Kanakapura, some 60 km from Bengaluru, buses were torched, highways blocked and it’s like an unofficial bandh. In the rest of the state, his party, listless just days ago, has suddenly found a cause to hit the streets. Politics in India seems to be run by Robin Hoods. Whatever be the nature of charges, if a politician’s ground-level PR is in place, he’s a hero of sorts! His supporters call it pure political vendetta. Many others are equally (or more) guilty of shady transactions, they say, but stay untouched under the protective umbrella of the ruling dispensation. 

Note, there’s no claim of clean politics, only a comparative scaling of grey shades. The Congress needs to ponder how DKS became the face of the party in a state that had leaders like S Nijalingappa and Devaraj Urs. The state BJP, meanwhile, is curiously muted. After all, DKS is from the powerful Vokkaliga community...