He came, he saw, he lost his shirt! Everything that could possibly go wrong, did, at the rally to kick off the BJP’s ambitious Nava Karnataka Nirmana Parivarthana Yatra that began last Thursday. BJP President Amit Shah was not amused! Refusing to even drink the proffered glass of water, the sea of empty chairs were like a red rag to the raging bull – the overzealous organizers, R Ashoka & Co., had organized an extra 50,000 chairs, all in bright, unmissable red. The helicopter ride that took Mr Shah from the airport to the venue, which was in itself, a poor choice, had already given the chief guest from Delhi, a shocking overview of the embarrassingly low turn-out that he would face as he landed.
Instead of the planned lakhs, there were barely 30,000 people. If that. And that’s including the so-called bikers who came in from the districts and were parked in and around the parking lot of the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, partaking the fruits of their pay for a day. This also included the 10,000 or so actual BJP workers, wolfing down their lunch in the shade, rather than wilt in the open in the enclosure next to the venue. Less said about the state of the lunch venue, post the rally, the better. The tongue-lashing that sent Ashoka, the main man behind the event, and state stalwarts like Ananth Kumar and rising star Piyush Goyal scurrying to fill the seats, will not be the end of it. Shobha Karandlaje, who was given charge of the rallies, over everyone else’s head, will be called to account. So will Sadananda Gowda, whose constituency this falls into. And P.C.Mohan.
In all the finger-pointing after the event, it’s still unclear however, why it was left to Ashoka and his cohorts to organize the rally single-handed, when the entire RSS-BJP machinery, masters of mobilizing the cadres, is readily available. Did Ashoka, in an ill-thought out move, to prove that he could deliver Bengaluru, miscalculate, and miscalculate badly. And as one insider said to me - Was it deliberate? The low turnout, being a not so subtle message that the BJP is a deeply divided house, with all the leaders pulling in different directions, and none of them, particularly happy with the BSY modus operandi, of marching to his own drummer. If the size of rallies are to be the benchmark of a political homecoming, then the BJP has an uphill task in taking the city, leaving as it does a huge question mark over Ashoka’s ability to mobilize the faithful; the very same Ashoka, who was always touted for his hold over the Vokkaliga community in the city and its surrounds.
Much the same goes for Sadananda Gowda and P.C. Mohan, who together with Ananth Kumar make up the three powerful BJP MPs from the city. (None of whom see eye to to eye with BSY.) Alongside the eleven BJP MLAs – not forgetting the hundred-strong right-leaning corporators – it is they who must deliver Bengaluru to the BJP in May 2018 and again, in 2019. Ashoka, entrusting the corporators – divested of their loose change after DeMo and GST- with the task of mobilizing rally attendees instead of turning to the RSS- BJP cadres made little sense. And it showed in the paltry turnout.
If Amit Shah did not have a full understanding of the wheels within the wheels in the Karnataka BJP before this visit, on Thursday, he got a bird’s eye view. He’s been brought up to speed and how, on the ambitions of Ashoka, probably egged on by BSY’s arch-rival Ananth Kumar. And he’s had little choice but to give free rein to BSY, given the unspoken anger among the Lingayat community over the dropping of Siddesh, the Lingayat face, from the central cabinet and the induction of a Brahmin, in Ananth Kumar Hegde, in his place. The Parivarthana rally will touch all the Lingayat hotspots, and will be feted by the forward community’s mathas as it courses through Tumakuru and Davanagere. BSY, drawing ever larger crowds as he moves into the interior as the 75 day yatra unfolds, reinforcing his image as the Lingayat leader who cannot be wished away, corruption charges or no corruption charges.
BSY’s hold on the masses as the yatra gains traction will then be demonstrable. It will in all probability, give him the guts, now, to stare even Amit Shah in the face on the 75 year cut off rule, the pressure to give up his safe seat of Shikaripur for another, and make way for the younger, more volatile five time MP Ananth Kumar Hegde, who many say is the BJP’s CM-in-waiting, the CM face for 2019, the only leader who was greeted ecstatically and to loud cheers at the Thursday rally. Hedge is the man tasked by Shah to consolidate the Hindu vote, in the coastal districts, be it through a campaign that now drops ‘love jihad’ for stepping up the heat on Tipu Jayanti this November 9, to drive home the message that the Congress leans to the minorities and ignores the majority Hindu. The rise and rise of Hegde… the man to watch post November 18, once polls close in Gujarat. But come 2018, will Mr Yeddyurappa step aside willingly, join the Margdarshak club and fade into governorship a la Kiran Bedi? Does Delhi really know the BSY behind the benign façade, what makes a man like him really tick, what could make him explode, take the high road. As he has done once before.
Right now, insiders say - vigorously denied by his own aides - he is being arm-twisted to stay the course. Delhi knows he’s the BJP’s best bet to win them the assembly, and that’s why the bigwigs are holding the corruption cases over his head. Perform or else! It’s not clear, of course, whether any of this is fact or fiction. But one thing’s clear – BSY’s strategy, is as counter-intuitive as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s. The savvy Congress CM’s strategy is to divide the Lingayat votebank and bring in the 5% crossover vote to bridge the shortfall in northern Karnataka. The two men have similar constraints. Just as the BJP stalwarts are ranged against BSY, Siddaramaiah has an equally restless cast of characters, including a party chief who has made no secret of wanting to be CM, and now his Lingayat face, M.B. Patil all but saying that if he closes the Lingayat deal for the Congress, he must be repaid with a chief ministership!
Within the BSY camp, an assiduous wooing of the Congress weak links are paying off, with the arrival of C.P.Yogeshwar and the garnering of the key seat of Chennapatna even as rumours persist of a crossover by other key Congress leaders by December, to wriggle out of the by-election rule. BSY’s strategists are said to be eyeing D.K.Shivakumar’s brother D.K.Suresh - a counter to Ashoka - who knows well the Bengaluru Rural, Mandya and the Old Mysore region as he does the North and the Hubballi-Dharwad belt, where DKShi has been a master electioneer, with his brother and lieutenant by his side. Known to be close to former chief minister S.M.Krishna, whose own close kin have also been under the IT scanner, its unclear if the BJP is using the IT raids as the proverbial carrot and stick to reel in the DK brothers, the only duo with the inside knowledge to break the Congress in the chief minister’s own backyard.
The JD(S) is dusting off its own customized Advani style rath yatra for a BJP style road rally as is the Congress’ whose Lingayat outreach is rapidly gaining traction and will be followed by a 30 day rally shortly. Is everyone peaking early? There’s still another six months to go before the polls. And yet, every political party is pulling out all the stops, as if polls are only weeks away! The speculation in Delhi’s political circles, leavened with rumour, gossip and innuendo suggest, the BJP isn’t going to wait till 2019 after all, and will call elections a full year early to coincide with the assembly polls in the Congress' last bastion,Karnataka! Surely, PM Modi will not do an Atal Behari Vajpayee and live to tell the tale!
Unless, buoyed by a superlative win in the retaking of Gujarat, (Himachal is a no contest) by crushing the formidable young trio of Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani, brought together by Rahul Gandhi, (only days away from finally taking charge of Congress) and whose threat to eat into the BJP behemoth falters at the final frontier, it makes Modi invincible again! Some Parivarthana that will be!
