36 5 august 2019the Chairman of the Coalition Coordination Committee, has ac-
cused the BJP of indulging in “wholesale” skulduggery, the party
maintains that the hollowing out of the Congress-Jd(S) combine
is the result of internal upheavals. “The rebels felt they were be-
ing dictated to. The government was not letting them function
as individual legislators and ministers. Most of them, if not all,
including vijayanagara MlA Anand Singh, will shortly support
us in our bid to form the government. There will be no need to go
for fresh elections,” said B Sriramulu, the BJP’s Tribal leader from
Ballari, and the Molakalmuru MlA, speaking to Open on July
24th. “Some of them may be given ministerial berths but what
is wrong with that? didn’t the coalition government undertake
Cabinet expansions to accommodate some of the disgruntled
MlAs? even after that, they remained unhappy because coali-
tion leaders failed to address genuine grievances,” Sriramulu said.
He CongreSS And the Jd(S), which had spared
no effort over the past month to win back the ren-
egades, stressed they wouldn’t welcome them back
“even if the sky fell”. “i am very hurt by the actions
of rebel MlAs, who were my friends,” said dK Shivakumar, the
Congress’ redoubtable arbiter and chief minister-in-waiting,
ahead of the no-confidence motion on July 23rd. The minister
for irrigation in the Kumaraswamy government quoted voltaire:
“lord, protect me from my friends; i can take care of my enemies.”
Amid the high-tension debate and the dramatic sleepovers in
the House over the past few days, Shivakumar—with his hard-
edged practicality, irrepressible wit (“The way Kr Puram rebel
MlA Byrathi Basavaraj ran to the
Speaker’s office would put even
Ben Johnson to shame”) and dis-
plays of after-hours camaraderie
with opposition leaders (“There
is nothing wrong with making
you deputy chief minister, but the
BJP won’t do that, they will choose
someone else,” he joked to a smirking Sriramulu)—emerged as
the face of resilience in the Congress in its hour of despondency.
in debating the trust motion, even as the BJP’s silence betrayed
its gross hunger for power, Congress and Jd(S) leaders, including
Siddaramaiah, Priyank Kharge, Krishna Byre gowda and KM
Shivalinge gowda, demonstrated an understanding of constitu-
tional law and the grace to face their own fallibility.
The odds, of course, were heaped against the embattled gov-
ernment. governor vajubhai vala, allegedly a BJP sympathiser,
wanted a trust vote without delay. The Supreme Court had ruled
that rebel MlAs could defy their party whips without being dis-
qualified, thereby paving the way for the fall of the government.
More worryingly, it has set a precedent for judicial interference
in a crucial legislative matter. “We all go home knowing we tried
the best we could. For all the charges of disunity in the coalition,
all of us were more than willing to compromise for the sake of
stability,” says Jd(S) leader and higher education minister in the
outgoing Cabinet gT deve gowda, who tried, in vain, to convince
rebel Jd(S) MlAs to return. deve gowda, who had vanquished
his bête noire Siddaramaiah in Chamundeshwari by over 36,000
votes in the 2018 Assembly elections, said earlier this month if
the coalition coordinators thought that installing the latter as
chief minister would quell rebellion, he was all for it. Among the
first wave of rebels who left the coalition early in July were sup-
porters of Siddaramaiah, leading to speculation that it was the
former chief minister who had instigated them—a theory that
has since lost currency.
“There are two kinds of leaders who have quit: veterans who
felt incapacitated as part of a shaky and ineffective coalition and
MlAs whose popularity has been declining and who cannot win
another election on their own,” says a senior BJP leader who did
not wish to be named. “once they join us, it is narendra Modi who
is the candidate. The results of the lok Sabha elections have made
it clear to everyone that people want a strong leader.” Many of thepoliticsT
bs yeDiyurappa
anD bJp Mlas after
the trust vote in
the asseMbly,
bengaluru, July 23