Caste in corruption

BJP's embarrassing double standards in Karnataka

The fate of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Chief Minister in Karnataka, B S Yeddyurappa, may get decided before this comment is out in print, but the run up to the denouement has embarrassed the country’s main opposition party at a time when it is seeking to occupy a high moral ground on the issue of corruption in Congress-ruled states and at the Centre. While Mr Yeddyurappa has sought to retrieve lost ground by getting his family and relatives to return the government land allotted to them preferentially during his chief ministership, it is unlikely to win him any long-term reprieve. The leader of the opposition Janata Dal (S), which has been spearheading the campaign against the BJP-led administration by producing documents in support of its allegation of a land scam involving the chief minister, has demanded his resignation, arguing that returning the land amounts to an admission of guilt. This is the third crisis to hit the government which has been in power for under three years and with every passing day its image, in terms of either probity or stability, gets worse. It remains to be seen how much worse things can get before Mr Yeddyurappa has to throw in the towel. Even if he manages to stick on for the full term, he will hardly be able to approach the electorate again on the basis of his record which will be one of desperately hanging on to power with the help of aya Rams and gaya Rams amidst widespread allegations of use of money to buy legislative support.

What marks out the latest crisis from the earlier ones is the documentary “proof” that the Opposition has produced which is widely believed to have come from dissident leaders within the ruling BJP itself determined to get rid of Mr Yeddyurappa. The factional topography of the Karnataka BJP is drawn quite clearly in the public mind. The dominant force in it is seen to be the resource-rich Reddy brothers, with their mining interests, who perpetrated the first crisis of the government when they found that the chief minister was seeking to undermine them on their home turf in Bellary. Another powerful faction is led by Ananth Kumar, who is hardly considered a friend of the chief minister who hangs on with the support of the powerful and dominant Lingayat lobby. His trump card is that none can deliver the Lingayat vote (the community accounts for 15 per cent of the electorate) the way he can and it will not be beyond him to split the party if the state faction leaders dislodge him with the acquiescence of BJP central leaders.

The political crisis and the alleged land scam — it is not just straightforward allotment of prime land to Mr Yeddyurappa’s progeny but also denotification of similar land for the benefit of their business associates — show that when it comes to the deeper malaise in the Indian political system, the BJP is no different from other mainstream political parties. Even the opposition parties in Karnataka are made of the same stuff. Past rulers of the state have also favoured those close to them but done it more judiciously and carefully so that the trail back to them cannot be easily traced. The developments in Karnataka are particularly distasteful because there is not even a pretence of maintaining propriety. It appears a free-for-all with the devil threatening to take the hindmost.