The alchemy of defeat and victory

Ever since the inauguration of the spanking new headquarters of the BJP in Delhi, the party has, suffered one reverse after the other. Vaastu? Bad timing? Just poor poll alchemy? 

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his master tactician Amit Shah see the poll advantage slip away and regroup and recalibrate for the all important  re-election in 2019, they are facing an opposition that has finally understood the ‘divided they fall, united they stand a chance’ mantra. Whether it can translate into a greater national alliance is of course the key question. The loose anti-Modi alliance that scored in the recent by-polls was not a formal  arrangement. Not even close. But its broad contours saw an anti-BJP sentiment across states and parties, disparate and varied. True, a 12 seat bypoll upset does not a general election make, even if it exposes the BJP’s Hindutva face Yogi Adityanath and shows up Nitish Kumar as ripe for a Congress picking. Nitish being Nitish, has denied it. But in an indication that the BJP isn’t going to take this lying down, the pushback has already begun. Look at the back to back lynchings of BJP workers in Bengal, and the outcry over the breakdown of law and order. President’s Rule in WB next?

This is why the barely week old JD(S)-Congress government in Karnataka still in the throes of government formation, should pay heed. The BJP may be on the backfoot but it isn’t beaten. Yet.

Few know that it was the Marxist commissar Sitaram Yechury who read the tea leaves when the numbers started coming in, and swiftly set in motion a plan to snatch victory from defeat in Karnataka.  He worked the phones to prod the Congress chief Rahul Gandhi into reaching out to the Janata Dal(S), while simultaneously laying out the benefits of a sweet deal to his old comrade in arms, the JD(S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda. By accident or methinks design, he may have set out the broad contours of an alliance that could hold good for 2019. Not just in Karnataka, but across the nation.

The Karnataka deal is a definite break from the past. For the first time since Rahul Gandhi took over the reins of the Congress, the once Grand Old Party has come to understand the importance of sending out the right signals – of showing its willingness to play second fiddle to an alliance partner, even one that did not win even half the seats that you did. Giving up the chief ministership, the key portfolios of Finance and Power were strategically smart moves, signaling to all regional leaders, and not just the JD(S) H.D. Kumaraswamy, but the BSP’s Mayawati and Trinamul’s Mamata Banerjee as much as Telugu Desam’s Chandrababu Naidu – and perhaps now, even Sena and AAP - that the Congress was no longer looking for primacy. It didn’t want to be top dog any more.

The meeting at Mr Deve Gowda’s home on Friday which was the culmination of a week of backroom negotiations between the Congress and the JD(S) on the allocation of portfolios for the incoming cabinet,  said it all. In more ways than one. That it was happening at the senior leader’s home was the first signal that this was the one man who mattered – and who will matter in the days and month to come as he decides if he wants to play the role of glue or the wrecking ball. All the public muscle-flexing by the Congress’ ambitious state leaders in front of the cameras was noise, empty noise. HDD has the last word. And Rahul. Not them.

The men who matter in this equation going forward are JD(S) Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and the Congress’ trusted K.C. Venugopal who worked out the deal and presented it to their respective bosses. At 11.30 am, the six minute telephone call between Mr Deve Gowda and Mr Rahul Gandhi sealed the deal that would see HDK as the chief minister for five years and the Congress' Dr. G. Parameshwar as the deputy CM, and of course a cabinet..

But it was the written agreement that the Congress had the HDD-HDK father-son duo commit to, in writing, that is the real gamechanger. Whoever dreamed up the idea– however non-binding and non-legal - has to be saluted. Setting the terms and condition of the five year compact which would see no revisiting of the disastrous 20:20 power sharing agreement that the new deputy chief minister Dr. G. Parameshwar may have been inveigled into saying he wanted, was genius. Dr.G’s proffered formula was a 30:30 arrangement. Had he thought it through? What would the Congress have done, if the HDK did a whimsical 2008 turn and refused to hand over power? 

In fact, HDK canot afford to play spoiler. If he quits the deal this time, it will be the Congress that occupies the moral high ground.

The Congress too has boxed itself in. Former chief minister Siddaramaiah and former power minister D K Shivakumar, have been quietly cut out of the picture. He may be intra-party co-ordinator but this Siddaramaiah doesn’t have the heft and the clout of old. Either way, clipped wings et al, he’s still pushing for his key man, M.B.Patil - hare-brained failure of a ‘separate religion for Lingayat’ stratagem notwithstanding – or S.R. Patil, as his pick for KPCC in charge. D.K Shivakumar, who executed his task of guarding the flock from the BJP’s circling hawks and expected to be rewarded big time with the KPCC post, wasn’t. And wont be?   

DK’s understanding with HDK in their Ramanagara-Chennaptna backyard, between the so-called ‘Deal-King’ and the ‘Hi-Deal-King’ leaves Congress bigwigs a tad uncomfortable. Not that there aren’t similar understandings of that sort across party lines. The RR Nagar victory for the Congress’ Muniratna was one such eye-opener as the upcoming Jayanagar will be.

But that isn’t the real problem for this alliance. Apart from the fact that the mandate was definitely against them, for both the Congress as much as the JD(S), it is imperative that they stay in government. But with so many cooks, any one of them could play spoiler!   

The contract is a clever attempt at a course corrective, by giving the Congress the moral upper hand if HDK continues to pass the buck on farmers loans and other matters with his ‘my hands are tied because I’m in a coalition government’ trope. Bengaluru lives in hope. The invitation to Infy czar NRN Murthy to return to take charge of the city’s crumbling infrastructure is the one big signal that the JD(S), whose ministerial bench strength is poor – barring ‘Magic Box Subramanya’ – understands that despite the anti-mandate and charges of being hand in glove with the real estate mafia, HDK cannot let down the ordinary people who once lauded him for his path-breaking idea of building townships on the outskirts as a first step towards decongesting the city. 

Put the city back on track, Mr CM. Fix the roads. Give teeth to its non-existent Anti-corruption Bureau.

By tonight, there will be the rudiments of a government in place ahead of Wednesday's formal swearing-in. Whether it has a shelf life of three months or six, or a year and a half, or a full five year term, the last thing HDK will want as his nickname is Mr StealFlyover! Not with 2019 polls barely 11 months away.