Open Magazine – August 06, 2019

5 august 2019 http://www.openthemagazine.com 35

n July 23rd evening, after 14 months as

Karnataka Chief Minister, Hd Kumaraswamy’s

luck ran out. His own prayers, his brother Hd

revanna’s magic lemons, even a lucky room at

the Taj West end—all failed to arrest the ineluc-

table fall of the Congress-Janata dal (Secular)

government, which had run athwart of the aspirations of 19 of

its Members of legislative Assembly (MlAs). Twenty legislators,

including Congress Ballari (rural) MlA B nagendra, reportedly

unwell, were absent on the day of the long-anticipated trust vote,

whittling down the numbers of the coalition, which had come to

power after the Assembly elections in May 2018 with a strength of

118 in a house of 224. leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),

with its 105 MlAs intact and more slated to join its ranks, flashed

victory signs after bringing down a government that was birthed

only to keep the party out of power in the state. For the BJP, which

coasted to a second term in power at the Centre, 2019 has been an

annus mirabilis. Close on the heels of the party’s sweep of 25 of the

28 parliamentary constituencies in Karnataka, BS yediyurappa,

the 76-year-old state party president and a man of antic conceits,

may finally be able to put the ignominy of his 55-hour stint as

chief minister on the back of a fractured verdict in the Assembly

polls last year behind him.

While former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who was also

By V ShoBa

O

politics

the inevitable end

The real story in Karnataka is not the fall of the Congress-JD(S) government

but the impending demise of the Congress itself in the state

KarnataKa Chief Minister

hD KuMarswaMy ( Centre) During

the ConfiDenCe Motion in the

asseMbly, bengaluru, July 23