Karnataka Bypolls: Defection and dissent led to Congress-JDS rout

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Karnataka Bypolls: Defection and dissent led to Congress-JDS rout

The decline of the Congress-JDS alliance in Karnataka has been in making for more than a year

Tuesday December 10, 2019 12:21 PM, Pradip Bhattacharya, ummid.com

Congress JD (S) alliance

The future of Congress Party leadership in Karnataka is at stake. The Congress –NCP alliance which gave a huge blow to the Sena-BJP alliance in Maharashtra recently, could not reaffirm the same magic in Karnataka. The humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections in May and now again in recent bypolls, being reduced to one or two seats, is probably the worst in Congress history.

It is agreed that bypoll is different and general elections are different. But then the way BJP managed to sweep the polls with the help of defectors, did indeed make Congress a great loser. The bypoll results put a question mark on JDS-Congress coalition government which BJP had pulled down in July this year.

The crisis in the JDS-Congress alliance in Karnataka has demonstrated how the problem of political defections played its role. Karnataka Politics has shown how anti-defection law can be used and abused. The result of the assembly election was a mixed bag for the Congress- JDS alliance. The alliance formed the government, but its strength in the Assembly fell from majority mark when it lost control of the state government after their MLAs shifted their political allegiance.

After BJP came to power at the centre, the lure of office played a dominant part in the decisions of legislators to defect. Even in the Goa Assembly, many Congress legislators joined BJP. In Goa assembly, few top Congressmen were given ministerial berths and they defected to BJP and helped form its government. BJP has been managing defecting legislators very well.

After Karnataka bypoll results, it is heard that the rebel Congress MLAs who joined the BJP for a berth in the government will be given ministerial posts. The lure of office of profit played a dominant part in the political horse-trading resulting in a spate of defections and counter defections.

Political observers say Congress had outlived its usefulness and politics dominated by old guards in Karnataka is no longer relevant. Congress has lost umpteen top and senior leaders who rebelled against the party and joined BJP a few months ago. The grand old party could not tackle the “problem of legislators changing their allegiance from one party to another”. BJP has termed the 15 rebel MLAs as genuine defectors and termed the rebel MLAs as those who had then voluntarily given up their allegiance to either Congress or JDS. And then, the ED and IT raids that BJP is constantly gunning at Karnataka Congress leaders are only sinking the Congress party. The political observers feel only a miracle can save the Congress from biting the dust again.

The decline of the Congress-JDS alliance in Karnataka has been in making for more than a year. The process of decline began with the central BJP leadership chasing the top Congress leaders to resorts in Mumbai and Haryana. Even veteran Congress leader like Siddaramaiah, Gundu Rao or B Ramesh could hardly manage to keep the party intact. It is BJP’s old formula to poach MLAs from Congress and make a claim to form a government that won the heart of BJP legislators in Karnataka.

Top rebel Congress leaders who shifted to BJP did make the party at a crossroad, which made the grand old party in Karnataka to go on the brink of demise or does the party in Karnataka have still a chance of rehabilitating itself? After a dramatic partition in Congress that included a showdown at Mumbai hotel, the MLAs who quit Congress were disqualified by then-Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar and barred from elections till 2023. The Supreme Court confirmed the disqualification but allowed the rebels to contest and gave BJP to have the better edge now in Assembly

Indeed, Bypolls are not assembly polls. But the defeat left Congress and JDS to miss a chance to affirm their position in the clear majority in Karnataka Assembly. Here the defectors have made Congress weaker like in Goa. BJP has managed to pull many Congress old guards to its fold in the states like Goa or Karnataka thereby making Congress weaker. Does one wonder if Congress knows well the defection game by now?

As one of the prominent faces of Congress in Karnataka, D. K. Shivakumar says, "Defections are not a one-way thing. It can happen to any party. People can move from BJP party to Congress too’’. Will Congress then manage to do the same – that is the only miracle that can make a bright future to Congress for a comeback. Anything can happen in Politics. This is the only way to lift the sagging fortunes of the party.

Seriously though, what could the grand old party do to arrest its fall now in Karnataka? The crisis of credibility that it battles today is perhaps the greatest, and if it does not act and act soon to reinvent itself, it risks in painting itself into complete irrelevance in the not too distant future. Even Sonia’s presidentship is clearly on its last legs. Sonia Gandhi did manage Congress to revamp its position in the states like Haryana and Maharashtra in Assembly polls. She still has the idea to keep Congress intact in Karnataka.

The resignation of Siddaramaiah and Gundu Rao will serve no purpose now. Political observers feel that leaders do not take breaks or run away from the responsibility by resigning from the post Leadership is a full-time job and responsibility.

Of course, defeat and victory are part of the game. There are plenty of examples when political parties after being routed have made impressive comebacks. But one thing is clear from the entire episode that the the anti-defection law has not been able to stop political defections and how BJP can grow "stronger" misusing the law?

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