The perils that face chief ministers - past, present and future

Bengaluru/Mysuru: After one of the most bruising electoral battles he had fought came to a close on Saturday evening, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah rang his office in Bengaluru on Saturday and told his staff that he would be taking a much needed 48 hours off on Sunday and Monday before official results are declared on May 15, this coming Tuesday. 

"We will win 120 plus seats, no less," he reportedly told his staff from his home in Mysuru claiming that he would win both the seats he was contesting from, Badami as well as Chamundeswari, where he is fighting the JD(S) stalwart G.T.Deve Gowda. The latter reportedly went on a campaign blitz on Friday night that the chief minister's advisers believe may bring the CM's hard fought lead down from the projected 10,000 votes to a mere 5,000. 

Congress sources also said that while the CM himself was publicly posting a figure of 120 seats, the Congress would most likely win 110 seats, and together with a few independents was confident it could form the government.

BJP insiders who conducted a survey on Thursday have told this newspaper however that there was worry in the Congress camp as not only was there an undercurrent against the CM across the state, G.T. Deve Gowda held a 6% lead over the chief minister in Chamundeswari and had also whittled down the lead held by the CM's son Yatindra in neighbouring Varuna from the CM's own record of 45,000 votes to 4,500. "We want to ensure the CM faces the embarrassment of having his original lead cut to four digits," the BJP official said, adding that the party was supremely confident that across the Mumbai Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka, they had managed to consolidate the Lingayat vote against the mass mobilization of the minorities-OBC-SC-ST vote by the Congress.

However sources close to developments in the BJP said that the BJP's chief ministerial candidate B. S. Yeddyurappa was deeply upset over the exit polls that showed a hung assembly and raised the possibility of a return to 2006 when he was part of a coalition government with the H D Kumaraswamy government. The government fell apart 20 months later when HDK refused to step down as chief minister to make way for BSY to take over as part of a power sharing agreement. 

After he had once again reiterated to the media that he was going to be sworn in on May 17, BSY is reported to have shut himself away and refused to meet or speak to anyone until he received a call from BJP president Amit Shah who assured him that he had no cause to worry.

"BSY was told that if there was a coalition government between the BJP and the JD(S), the chief minister would be B.S. Yeddyurappa and not H D Kumaraswamy," the source said, adding "It was only after that telephone call that BSY emerged from his room."