Wednesday 8 May 2013

'Monkey lost its Mango: Congress win in Karnataka


 Dear readers
 
The victory of the Congress Party in the Karnataka elections as somebody has said is like the electorate giving the keys from the thief to the dacoits. Ever since the time of the late  Ramakrishna Hedge who brought in a political leadership in Karnataka in the 80s, Karnataka politics have been a boiling pot with political leaders with huge business interest taking centre stage. It was when the BJP came to power, the first time in a southern state that the people in the country thought that political decency would come back into Karnataka. However Yediyurappa who became the BJP chief minister proved to be not only corrupt but a power monger . Electorate this time had no other choice but to bring back the Congress to power. Well how the new government is going to perform is yet to be seen, but the most important aspect here to be noted and learned is that the BJP has again proved its political bankruptcy.  In spite of mounting pressure to sack Mr Yedurappa, the central leadership of the BJP was dillydallying thinking that the politically strong lingayat community vote bank will get eroded. It kept on a closed eye to the mining scam and arrogance of Yedurappa , till he became belligerent to have formed his own political party. The result is that BJP lost its southern entry post with severe ramification to its aspiration of increasing its vote share in the south of India prior to the 2014 general elections and the lingayats voted for the congress. BJP today looks like fallen horse with only a Modi to bank upon with.
Political decision making in a democracy should be very much weighed on its impact on long term credibility. BJP had done the same mistake when they failed to dismiss the Narendra Modi government as a sequel to the 2002 riots, with only an advise of rajadharma principle from the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Presently the congress led UPA government is also in the same mind set when they are still allowing the railway Minister and the Law Minister to cling on inspite of all levels of public opinion to make them resign.
It is a time now that political morality as a principle is back in the public life of parties and politicians. Short term gains will always cost in the long term. The Karnataka elections are the latest case in hand. As Judith Cook , the American novelist , has mentioned in her seminal book  Price of freedom, in democracy political expediency outweighs nepotism and corruption. Yedurappa , Pawan kumar banzal and Aswini Kumar are only few beads in such an endless chain of political expediency within our turbulent  democracy
Sanyasi

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