A school for politicians

Our country is becoming a battlefield for politicians who are going all out to display their versatile tricks to establish their supremacy over one another. The politicians have learnt a lot from their experience and perhaps, by their strange bed fellows during a number of stints of coalition in the states and centre. It is also becoming clear that the days of coalitions are going to stay. It will become imminent for the politicians to acquire specialised skills to tackle the hidden onslaught of their opponents and coalition partners. A number of schools to impart political skills have come up in Bihar and the latest one in Kerala too. It is understood that such schools intends to impart skill of mounting pressures and use of excuses for deserting parties. The desertions in the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] have been more noticeable. The BJP, in the present context stands for ‘Bikharti Janta Party’.

The party started cracking right from the days of its first avatar Bharatiya Jan Sangh [BJS]. The BJS was founded by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in 1950s. Mauli Chandra Sharma took over after the demise of Mukherjee, as president of BJS in 1954, had to quit the party to join other party. This is the only party deserted by its three presidents, the other two are Pitambar Das who took over in 1960 and deserted in 1970 and Balraj Madhok who took over in 1966 and left in 1969. The list of deserters in the BJP is too lengthy. Its five chief ministers deserted the party to form their outfits. Kalyan Singh deserted the BJP to form his party twice in Uttar Pradesh. V K Saklecha deserted to float his Madhya Pradesh Janata Party. In Delhi, M L Khurana quit launching his outfit. Uma Bharti, left BJP to float the Bharatiya Janshakti Party. Of late, Keshubhai Patel deserted his long association with BJP to form Gujarat Parivartan Party. In Gujarat, Suresh Mehta, the former chief minister, walked over from his party whereas Shankar Singh Vaghela left BJP to form Rashtriya Janata Party to become the chief minister, courtesy Congress party. Ultimately Vaghela joined the Congress party to become a minister in the Union government. Mukhtiar Singh, leader of BJS and BJP in Haryana Assembly walked away from his party to join the Congress party. He left BJP under the influence of the then Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, who once switched over from Janta Party to the Congress party along with his all ministers and MLAs.

The wind of desertion is now blowing in a southern state, Karnataka, where the political drama is becoming more and more interesting. The hero is dashing as well as provocative from the core of his heart to make his party’s high command scared and impatient as the leader of Lingayats boasts of his influence over the masses. B S Yeddyurappa also believes in astrological inputs like Tamilnadu Chief Minister J Jaylalitha. Yeddy also got spellings of his name changed from Yediyurappa to Yeddyurappa like Jaylalita did this by adding one more ‘a’ to spellings of her name.

It is on record that Yeddy‘s fortune became bright after effecting change in spellings. He started his political career as councilor and Taluka Municipality Chairman in 1972 to become the 25th chief minister of Karnataka in November 2007. In fact, Yeddy steered victory for his saffron party BJP in the 2008 Assembly election. Yeddy, after being found involved in the cases of irregularities, started frequently visiting temples and places of religious importance to please the Almighty to keep his seat of power safe and secure. It yielded results a number of times. As and when the danger of being unseated became serious, Yeddy visited the temples with bare chest to offer prayers. Yeddyurappa had to resign ultimately with heavy heart with a rider to get appointed the chief minister of his choice. Initially, Sadananda Gowda, Lok Sabha member, was appointed with consent of Yeddy. After few months Yeddy started demanding Gowda’s resignation and return as the chief minister. This could not become possible as the tallest leader of the party in Karnataka was got strangled in the cases one after another. Gowda was replaced with Shettar that too with consent of Yeddyurappa. He still continues his annoyance with the party high command for not offering him the post of the chief minister earlier and the post of the BJP state president promised by the high command later. It is evident that he has been giving indications to take a drastic step against the party and its high command. Of late he has realised that leaders of the BJP high command are not at all reliable and are not in the habit of keeping their words and promises. In addition to this he has also learnt from his experiences and the historical facts that the record of Congress leaders, including prime ministers such as Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and its present party chief Sonia Gandhi, has been much better. In other words, of late Yeddyurappa has realised that the Congress party believes in action and has been honoring its promises and the words, come what may.   

Sat Pal is the information officer of the Delhi government.