Money power, Lobbies play role in Karnataka | A. Jayaram

Published on 22-04-2008 In National

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Money power, Lobbies play role in Karnataka

Ever since the announcement of dates for the Karnataka Assembly elections in the State political party workers from various parts are thronging the State Capital pleading for party ticket for their leaders.

A majority of those coming here belong to the Congress and the BJP and most of them are from the overpoliticised Mumbai and Hyderabad-Karnataka districts. They are arriving here packed in vans (the Tempo Trax appears to be the most popular vehicle) with Party flags flying, to wait upon party bigwigs. The workers or the leaders sponsoring the trips to Bangalore are only making the hoteliers richer. If they do not get a favourable hearing from the State level leaders, they resort to dharnas and protests.

One wonders whether there are political leaders willing to listen to the views of the workers at the grassroots level. It is not without reason there is discontent if not rebellion in the BJP in some of the districts. The grouse in the Party is that the leaders take the RSS volunteers for granted and ignore them when it comes to selection of candidates for elections. Unlike the other major parties, the BJP has the backing of the RSS whose workers render voluntary service. The Congress or the JD (S) Seva Dal workers come nowhere near the RSS in serving their party organizations. The service motto of the Seva Dal died along with the US educated doctor N.S.Hardikar and his Hindustan Seva Dal which he had founded in 1924 at the time of the Belgaum Congress presided over by Mahatma Gandhi.

For public consumption, every party claims that it selects candidates for elections going by the wishes of the party workers. True, party organizations at the block or the district levels recommend the names to the State unit. In the Congress, the candidates are both selected and announced in New Delhi. The Congress is a High Command party and every leader swears by that phrase. In the BJP, it might be that only the names are announced in Delhi and the interference of the national level leaders in the selection appears to be less than that in the Congress. But in the JD (S), selection is an easier process as the party High Command is in Padmanabhanagar in Bangalore, regarded as the fiefdom of H.D.Deve Gowda. It will be no surprise if the State President Merajuddin Patel fails to get nomination for himself!

That the BJP has had a head start over the other major parties in the selection of candidates shows that the Party was better prepared to face the elections. The Congress was hoping against hope that Assembly elections in the State would be held in October or later and it had expected President's rule to take care of its interests. It had also relied on the delimitation of constituencies. The JD (S) was not for early elections as it wanted any sympathy in favour of the BJP to evaporate.

The BJP would not have witnessed protests in some of the constituencies if its State leaders had listened to the views of the party workers. The State and national leaders have marred the prospects of the Party in the Bangalore city constituencies in particular by selecting tainted or mediocre candidates in several of them. However the most highlighted protest is from the former Assembly constituency of the State Party President D.V.Sadananda Gowda, Puttur. Viewed from Bangalore, there was no reason to deny the nomination to Shakunthala Shetty. At one time, her name had been considered for a ministership along with that of Yogish Bhat.

In Bangalore city, there was no reason for the State BJP leaders to select Shoba Karandlaje, already an MLC from Yeshwantpur, a dismissed professor of the Bangalore University Mylarapppa from Pulikeshinagar or former Janata Dal man R.

V.Harish from Mahalakshmi Layout. Shoba Karandlaje has got the nomination because of being a loyalist of the former chief minister B.S.Yeddyurappa. Some of the State leaders had shot down the move to appoint her as a minister. There is no doubt that she is an outsider to Yeshwantpur. It was the former governor T.N.Chaturvedi who had ordered an inquiry against Prof.Mylarappa on the allegation of double plagiarism in obtaining his doctorate in Sociology. He had compounded it by allowing a candidate to get a Ph.D for what turned out to be a literal translation (into Kannada) of his own purloined thesis! But the BJP thinks Mylarapppa is an academic of high distinction.

The Party veteran S.Mallikarjunaiah, MP from Tumkur is sore that his candidates were ignored in the selection from Tumkur District. For some years now, he has felt ignored in the Party .Mallikarjunaiah had headed the State Jan Sangh years before the Ananth Kumars and the others were enrolled in the Party.

It is no secret that Yeddyurappa and the former Union minister H.N.Anantha Kumar run two major camps in the State BJP and loyalty to them greatly helps in securing party nomination. The latter is believed to have better clout with the national leadership and is considered close to the former deputy prime minister L.K.Advani.

It is the talk in Congress circles that it is not the views of the party workers but those of the AICC leaders from Karnataka that fetches the Party ticket. Besides Margaret Alva, B.K.Hariprasad and the Chairman of the AICC Media Cell Veerappa Moily, the Union Minister of State Oscar Fernandes has a big say in the selection. The elder brother of Hariprasad, B.K.Shivaram resigned from the State police service months ago, confident that he would be the Party candidate for the Malleswaram Assembly seat in Bangalore. He is about to replace the member of the dissolved Assembly M.R.Seetharam who represents the powerful professional college lobby in the Party.

The leaders of all the parties who otherwise might be decrying the "creamy layer" concept to appear to be pro-poor, are going by the criteria of caste and ability to spend by those seeking party nomination, which together make up for what is called "winnability". Democracy in Karnataka has over the years degenerated into rule by an oligarchy of the rich. Government or liquor contractors, cooperative sharks, businessmen and industrialists, middlemen, proprietors of educational institutions, lobbyists, builders and land developers are the major beneficiaries of the system of selection evolved in the State by the political parties. The BJP has its quota of builders (many view it as a tainted profession) in its list for Bangalore who might end up demolishing its chances of coming to power on its own.

Highly educated persons, successful professionals, those with administrative and parliamentary abilities and public spirited citizens are no longer preferred. Though all the three major political parties are aiming at coming to power on their own, they have ignored the criterion of parliamentary or administrative abilities of the candidates they want to place before the electorate. With the high cost of electioneering, few individuals with merit can hope to get elected as independents.
As the State BJP spokesman S.Suresh Kumar rightly said "every political party wants numbers in the new Assembly and not members". Kumar is one of the few falling in the category of public spirited citizens.

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