Toppling games will only hit Oppn’s credibility

On May 13, 2023, Karnataka slipped out of the BJP’s grasp with the Congress party sweeping to power winning 135 of the 224 seats in the state Assembly scoring an emphatic victory after a series of shaky coalition experiments in the past decade. The saffronists, who had won as many as 104 seats five years ago in 2019, and had ramped up their numbers by engineering defections from the Congress and JD(S), had the ignominy of seeing their numbers drop to a paltry 66. As for the Janata Dal(S) led by former PM Deve Gowda and son HD Kumaraswamy, the less said the better.

After winning a respectable 37 seats in 2019, their tally fell steeply to a mere 19 with the party wiped out from several of its bastions in the Old Mysuru region. People of Karnataka heaved a sigh of relief hoping that they could relax under five years of undisturbed governance. They had had enough of an ineffectual Bommai government which proved utterly incapable of tackling serious problems including flooding in Bengaluru and deep-rooted corruption. Since then, the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah has had a relatively smooth tenure of almost one and a half years except for the occasional hiccup. So in line with the best traditions of democracy, people expected the BJP and JD(S), now in the Opposition, to lie low after the electoral drubbing, play a constructive role and wait for their turn when the next elections are due in 2028. But that was not to be. In the past few months, both parties, unmindful of their depleted numbers in the Assembly, have launched vituperative campaigns against the Congress government. Even the five guarantee schemes which took the wind out of the sails of the Opposition, are being attacked every day though people now enjoy a huge power subsidy while women folk are traveling free in buses and enjoying a monthly dole which helps keep the pot boiling in every home.

Attempts are also being made by central investigative agencies to go after the top guns of the government with scam after scam being raked up. The latest to fire a salvo at the government is none other than the venerable Deve Gowda, who declared at a poll rally in Channapatna that he will ‘uproot’ the Congress government. The former PM no doubt has an axe to grind with CM Siddaramaiah after seeing two of his grandsons being packed off to jail in sexual abuse cases which are going on in the courts. His son, a former minister and daughter-in-law too have been grilled and so the 91-year-old veteran is obviously not amused and suspects that the Congress is bent on finishing off his political outfit with its fortunes plummeting in recent years. One can’t help wondering how legitimate it is for any leader or party to declare their intent to topple a democratically elected government which enjoys a huge majority in the Assembly.

There are reported attempts being made to create a wedge in the ruling Congress with allegations flying high about crores being offered to legislators to switch sides and bring the government down. But there has been no indication so far of any crack in the government which is sailing smoothly, led by the hugely experienced CM and a team of ministers endowed with rich administrative acumen. In such a situation, it would be in the best interests of Karnataka for the Opposition to stop raking up issues which hardly strike a chord among the people and instead focus on development problems and specific areas where the administrative machinery has been lax. Veiled warnings like the ones being made by senior leaders on ousting a popular government in a few months, will only further damage the credibility of the Opposition which has already hit a low after the Assembly poll results.