Aditi Phadnis: Will Krishna deliver?

PLAIN POLITICS

He'd better as this is the first time Sonia has imposed a leader on the state unit.

If you're looking for a Person Like Us (PLU) in Karnataka, it would have to be Somanahalli Mallaiah (SM) Krishna. At an IT conference in 2000 when Krishna was the chief minister, then COO Nortel Networks, Clarence J Chandran, observed that he thought SM ought to mean Simply Marvellous.

The IT fraternity was agreed that SM Krishna was one chief minister who understood the importance of technology, encouraged biotechnology, got the Bangalore international airport project to start, created the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, launched the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC), and hired McKinsey to do a report on how Bangalore could be made to look more attractive for investors. Having lived and studied in the US as a Fulbright scholar, Krishna knows how to tie a cravat, attend the races and how to eat ragi mudde (ragi morsels that are swallowed, not chewed).

At a meeting three weeks ago, therefore, when the idea of sending the former chief Minister back to Karnataka for active politics was mooted at a meeting of all the top Congress leaders from Karnataka, the High Command was somewhat nonplussed at the vehemence of the opposition to Krishna's name. BK Hariprasad, CK Jaffer Sharief, Veerappa Moily, Oscar Fernandes, Margaret Alva, H Muniyappa, Paramewswar... they were all there.

Moily proposed his own name as the man who could set things right in Karnataka. BK Hariprasad said Krishna had got an opportunity to become chief minister in 1999 but the Congress lost everything in the 2004 elections. His refrain was: what can he do that we can't do ? CK Jaffer Sharief expressed his own reservations...

Despite all this, the Congress party decided to ask Krishna to resign from the Maharashtra governorship and go to Karnataka. The mood of the Karnataka Congress was no less belligerent.

State party chief Mallikarjun Kharge (who hasn't been able to constitute an executive of the party for the last four years) said he really didn't know what Krishna was going to do... he had said he would return to Karnataka and he had... but 'I had no idea he was coming here...'

Whatever the insecurities of the state Congress leaders, some things are indisputable. At least 10 per cent of the vote is going to swing towards the Congress as a result of this decision in the Mandya, Mysore and Bangalore regions.

Krishna might not strike a chord among the younger voters but he is seen as a man who is balanced and can at least speak into the cameras "" in other words, represent the Congress as a secular liberal party across the state. This is more than can be said about some other leaders.

He is a Vokkaliga (the landowning, politically and economically powerful intermediate caste of Karnataka), but has the support of some Lingayats, especially in north Karnataka, who admire him for being a controlled and restrained Vokkaliga, minus the raging testosterone levels of a Vokkaliga like HD Deve Gowda. As the Lingayats support the BJP in a big way, this swing will mean a lot to the Congress.

Sensible Karnataka politicians like BK Chandrashekar say the change will be refreshing. Krishna may be an inscrutable leader, but he belongs to no group, is a liberal and it is unlikely that anyone will challenge his leadership.
Except one man.
The Congress is doing all it can to restore administration in a state which is under a spell of restorative President's Rule. But if the people don't buy this and vote in a hung assembly, the party will have to do a deal with HD Deve Gowda, who is going nowhere.

As Deve Gowda detests Krishna only a shade less than the BJP, all bets are off about who will become the chief minister under those circumstances. But till then, ignoring state and central Congress leaders and recalling Krishna from the equivalent of the political boondocks is the smartest thing the Congress High Command could have done.

It is also the first time the High Command has taken such a brave decision. It has stuck its neck out (no one can recall when last Congress President Sonia Gandhi went against the state unit of the party to 'impose' a leader on it). Now it is up to Krishna to deliver.