programmes in a bid to change tack and
seemingly start afresh.
But even while several coalition lead-
ers were privately critical of their par-
ties, only a handful of MLAs—such as
Gokak legislator Ramesh Jarkiholi who
has been rebellious for most of the past
year—appeared to hold out any serious
threat to the coalition government.h
OwEVER, the situation changed
drastically over the past few
days. Suddenly, some unlikely
names had turned rebel—chiefly
Ramalinga Reddy, a former home
minister and a seven-time Congress
legislator from Bangalore; and A.H.
Vishwanath, who till recently was the
JD(S) state president. while Reddy felt
sidelined because he was overlooked for
a ministerial berth despite his seniority,
Vishwanath’s U-turn struck many as
abrupt—a former Congressman, he had
fallen out with Siddaramaiah and joined
the JD(S) in 2017. Just last week, he was
with party supremo H.D. Deve Gowda
to hand over charge and invest the
party’s new office bearers. But on July
6, he was leading Congress rebels out of
Raj Bhavan. Curiously, amongst them
was a group of MLAs from Bangalore
who were self-professed followers of
his bete noire Siddaramaiah.
The pacy turn of events puts Sidda-The fragility of
Karnataka’s coalition
wasn’t lost on anyone,
more so after the BJP’s
sweep in the Lok Sabha
elections in the state.ramaiah in a spot: MLAs S.T. Soma-
shekhar, B.A. Basavaraj and Munirathna,
who were seen as his loyalists, are
amongst those who resigned. “From
Day 1, there was a lot of griping and
grumbling by several Congressmen,
including a couple of top leaders,” says
senior Congress leader B.K. Chan-
drashekar. “Making such unbecoming
pronouncements rather than display-
ing patience and propriety, as repeat-
edly advised by the high command,
provoked a public opinion hostile to the
Congress.” Even after the Lok Sabha
defeat, there has been no effort within
the Karnataka unit towards honest
introspection and accountability, he
declares. “Instead, a handful of state
leaders dissolved the KPCC committee
of around 300 office bearers, quite a few
of whom were secretaries with 10-
years of service in the party.”The Congress and JD(S) rebels, how-
ever, claimed they didn’t intend to leave
the party and that they were only
resigning as legislators, blaming the
coalition government’s neglect of issues
they had been raising. “Some of them
have grievances, some are talking about
ministry expansion,” K.C. Venugopal
told reporters on July 8. “Congress
ministers have resigned from their
positions. They entrusted the party to
take necessary decisions regarding
reshuffling and settling of issues in the
present scenario.” The JD(S) too, as
reports suggested, made similar moves
to woo back its three legislators. The
offers, however, seemed to have come a
tad too late, observers pointed out.
By mid-week, the scenario had taken
a turn for the worse: on July 10, the
secretariat in Bangalore was abuzz with
the prospect of more Congress MLAs
turning up to tender resignations. The
question is: will the rebels give in? The
Kumaraswamy government needs to
pass its finance bill, which, observers
say, will be the key event now to test the
government’s strength. Events are
unfolding at such a frenetic pace that by
the time this report reaches our readers,
new scenarios may have emerged. The
only thing certain is that Karnataka’s
shaky politics is heading for a tremen-
dous showdown. OreBel gang Dissident Mlas
after a meeting with the governor14 OutlOOk 22 July 2019
Trading horses