|
Home
Search
Subscribe Online
Archives
About
Us
Cartoons
Online
Book Store
E-Greetings
Jobs @ MG
Advertise
on MG
Our
Team
Contact Us
Muslim
Matrimonials
Our Advertisers
| | Deve Gowda rises from the dust
By Nigar Ataulla
Continued from
 There
is another interesting dimension to the poll outcome. The party that
indeed bit the dust is the BJP. Its former state president K.S. Eshwarappa
was not only pushed to the third position, but has also forfeited the
deposit by securing less than one-sixth of the total votes polled. . Leave
alone coming second, the principal Opposition party in the state Assembly
has not even been able to come anywhere near it. The BJP is in third place
everywhere, including in its fiefs of Anekal and Uttarahalli Assembly
segments, where the Congress has emerged winner. The BJP was in the second
position during the last Parliamentary elections when its candidate had
lost narrowly against the Congress candidate.
The lacklustre performance of the BJP candidate is bound to aggravate the
internal problems in the party which has been sliding down steadily in the
state. Deve Gowda's victory is a bigger problem for the main Opposition in
the legislative assembly, BJP. About a dozen BJP legislators are
threatening to seek separate seating arrangements in the assembly when it
begins its session. Any such split coupled with the possible unification
of the two factions of the Janata Dal - the Secular and the United (headed
by Ramakrishna Hegde) groups - would change the picture of the opposition
benches in the legislative assembly. . While the victory has given a fresh
lease of life to Deve Gowda in national politics, the most important
lesson of the election is the message it gives to the Janata Dal factions
on the need for unity and the warning for the Congress(I) that life may
not be easy for the party when it has to contend with a unified Janata Dal.
The Congress(I) had gained from the Janata Dal splits in the past, but it
had lost in 1994 whe the Dal was divided. To that extent the Kanakapura
outcome may have a bearing on the state's politics in the coming months.
An unsavoury feature of the election, which may not bode well for the
state, is the increased level of violence, including murder and group
clashes that it witnessed. Leaders of political parties and their workers
need to keep it in mind that elections are a civilised and orderly test of
popular will and violence can only degrade politics, however important any
contest is for their parties.
Analysists attribute Gowda's victory to "sympathy factor" which
worked in his favour. Also 'non-cooperation' by his party leaders also led
to the Shiv Kumar defeat. Meanwhile the Communist Party of India (CPI) has
expressed happiness over the by-poll results. In a release here, party
leaders termed the results as a referendum on the performance of the
Congress government "which pursued anti-labour and anti-peasant
policies."
Several other factors also seem to have made an impact. Starting with
senior Janata Dal (U) leader Ramakrishna Hegde's blessings for Deve
Gowda's contest as common candidate of the Janata Dal (S) and Janata Dal
(U), the sudden softening of equations between the feuding duo, infused
the second line leaders and cadres yearning for party unity, with hope of
a better tomorrow. Galvanised from a position of virtual joblessness, they
took on the challenge as a do or die fight as they knew the stakes were
too high for the Dal, compared to the Congress and BJP. q
|
Subscribe
Now
|
