Redemption song

Plain Politics

Every state has a style of politics. In UP and Bihar, the Raja Bhaiyya-Pappu Yadav kind of politician has a certain fascination and appeal and the countryside is awash with clones and wannabes.

In Gujarat, Narendra Modi pushed automobile technology, gaudiness and showmanship to its outer limits by campaigning in a van that replicated a film set. By contrast, in Karnataka, flamboyant politicians are generally looked upon with disfavour.

Sure, you might get a Gundu Rao or an M Raghupathy sometimes (enough is known about the exploits of the former; and the story of the latter's love for a film star was the subject of torrid reports in Kannada tabloids). But on the whole the "is it a bird ? is it a plane ? No, it's Superman" type of politics doesn't go down well with the voting public in the state.

This is why the Congress and the BJP alike are amazed that Ananth Kumar should have been chosen to head the BJP unit in the state. Kumar's credibility rating in the state is not terribly high "" he had promised to get central investments worth Rs 2,000 to 3,000 crore, but the Devanahalli international airport is yet to see the light of day although Kumar has himself been a civil aviation minister and is on record with the promise that the clearance of the airport was "a matter of weeks".

Since being appointed BJP chief, he has been talking angrily and bitterly about Chief Minister S M Krishna. (Krishna, being a gentle soul, seems to have been paralysed into inaction by this attack).

His own party has been provoked into spitefulness at his elevation and is viciously running him down behind his back. In short, Kumar's somewhat reluctant acceptance of his new job has most people wondering how good he will be at it.

Whether you look at it from the point of view of caste equations, realpolitik or the BJP's own game plan for Karnataka, it is hard to understand where Kumar fits.

In this state politics is a balancing game between the two dominant castes, the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas. Occasionally you might find the rivalry between these two castes throwing up a Brahmin leadership in the form of , say an R K Hegde.

But managing that contradiction is a very difficult task, as even as accomplished a politician as Hegde found out. Ananth Kumar is also a Brahmin, but one who is seen to have upstaged B Yediyurappa, a Lingayat of no small standing who was expecting to get the job of running the BJP in Karnataka. Karnataka's backward classes hardly know Kumar. Therefore he has to manage a sullen party which is in danger of dwindling away into nothingness.

The BJP legislature party in Karnataka split about 18 months ago, MLAs citing Kumar's high-handedness as one reason for moving out of the BJP. Twelve MLAs, nearly one third of the BJP's total strength in the assembly, decided to form a separate bloc. That many joined the Congress later is another story.

Once Kumar's own right-hand man, Vijay Sankeshwar who represents Dharwad in the Lok Sabha, has moved away from Kumar after a huge breach.

As Hubli-Dharwad is Kumar's own backyard (he learnt his politics here from his mother who rose to become deputy mayor of Hubli and was a women's rights activist), this is a huge setback. A few months ago, six MLAs cross voted against the BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections from the state. That's the extent of the infighting.

And the BJP's prescription for this conundrum? A young man full of swagger and overconfidence who belongs to the wrong caste, has an unpopular style of politics and hasn't done any of the things he promised to do while he was minister. Can anyone be blamed for concluding that the BJP is heading towards harakiri ?

It is unlikely that the BJP high command would have been unaware of all this. The question then is why Ananth Kumar was chosen for this job in the first place.

Wouldn't he have been better placed in Delhi, a jewel among ministers who lunch? (So careful was Kumar during his ministerial tenure that few files moved during his stint as civil aviations minister, he took a slew of political decisions as urban development minister and was responsible for wide publicity to the Sindhu Darshan festival in Leh as tourism and culture minister.)

The answer is: there was no one else. Ananth Kumar came to the BJP via the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) route. His rise was quick and though he may choose to forget this, was largely the result of the efforts of Murli Manohar Joshi.

He was the youngest minister in Vajpayee's first cabinet after having served as officebearer in the state BJP before. So the party is hoping his youth and energy will help create a new base of young voters for the party.

Karnataka sent seven BJP MPs to the Lok Sabha in the last election and got 34 per cent of the vote. In order to prove himself Kumar has to ensure this tally is improved in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. It should be a matter of concern to him that his own margin of victory (he won from Bangalore-South for the third consecutive term in the last election) had dwindled to a little more than 60,000 votes against a previous record margin of victory. Party sources say that if the Congress candidate, BK Hariprasad, had been replaced by someone else, Kumar might not have won at all.

So Kumar has to rebuild not just the party's fortunes in Karnataka but also his own. His family have been consultant astrologers to the Mysore maharaja. Maybe it is time for Kumar to turn to tried-and-tested methods for help.