Unfit to lead

The annals of horse trading in Indian politics are strewn with many oddities, but none is odder than two Karnataka coalition partners being unable to pull along because one will not sign an agreement on stamped paper on the dos and don'ts to be followed, as demanded by the other. This absurdity underlines not only the low point to which politics in the state has fallen but also points to the style in which differences have been handled and aired. The third coalition government in the state in three-and-a-half years has failed to get started for more substantive reasons than the elusive stamped paper, the foremost of them being the inability of Janata Dal (Secular) to keep its word. It pulled down the Congress-JD(S) coalition 20 months ago and agreed to share power with the BJP on the understanding that the chief minister's seat would be occupied by the leaders of the two parties for an equal length of time. But when the time came to quit in accordance with this understanding (perhaps the BJP forgot to ask that it be put down on stamp paper!), the JD(S) used every excuse to hang on. Then, when the BJP withdrew support, the JD(S) agreed to abide by the old deal, only to back out again.

The responsibility for this unholy sequence rests squarely on the shoulders of H D Deve Gowda, who as a former prime minister has written a new chapter on how the same person can move from the highs to the lows of politics with such ease. One of the most severe reprimands that the Karnataka government has received from the Supreme Court has been over its reneging on the agreement with the firm promoting the Nandi infrastructure corridor linking Mysore and Bangalore. What is often forgotten is that the agreement was signed when Mr Gowda was prime minister and his protégé, J H Patel, was the Karnataka chief minister, doing nothing without his say-so. Thus the state has been intransigent at his behest on a deal which must have had his blessings in the first place. More recently, Mr Gowda hit the headlines by publicly quarrelling with Infosys's iconic founder N R Nararyana Murthy, accusing the firm of being greedy for land. Ultimately, the scheming Mr Gowda seems to have ended up scheming against himself because no one in Karnataka politics is likely to strike a deal with him any more.

But far more important that what Mr Gowda has done to himself and his party is what he has done to his state. Under his tutelage, the state has been seen to be slowly losing out to neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in the competition to attract large investments. Most large IT firms which began in Bangalore have decided to expand elsewhere, driven by both the state government's inability to deliver land and the declining quality of life in Bangalore. Mr Gowda has openly called himself pro-farmer and not lifted a finger to solve the civic problems of Bangalore, but his watch has not been marked by any change in the well-being of the countryside. District administrations have been plagued by frequent transfers of officials, and it is only good rains that have kept an agricultural crisis at bay. At the end of the day, Mr Gowda has pleased none and helped none, least of all himself and his son, who was briefly the chief minister.