Karnataka politicians' prediction, polarisation and predilection

Bangalore, Jan 15: Karnataka politicians of all hues have been busy for months predicting that the BJP government headed by Jagadish Shettar will fall soon after Makar Sankranti Monday and the state will witness political polarisation for the better.As the 'D-Day' dawned Monday, indications were that the forecast would not to come true and the polarisation would be nothing more than predilections of politicians hopping party ahead of the polls due in May.The credit for coming out with a strategy to make the predictions go awry goes to the Bharatiya Janata Party for once, as ever since it came to power for the first time in Karnataka in May 2008, ham-handedness has been the hallmark of the way the party affairs in the state were managed by its central and state leaders.Shettar, heading the BJP's third government in over four years, is sitting pretty and gaining strength with the BJP declaring he would lead the party in the polls and is its chief ministerial candidate.This is in sharp contrast to the scare that BJP's first chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa created in the ruling outfit just about a month ago when he quit to lead the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP). He, his supporters and the opposition Congress and Janata Dal-Secular almost daily predicted that Shettar's fall was imminent, leading the public to believe that the state was heading for polls in February.In a way, Shettar is running a minority government because around 15 of the BJP's 117 members in the 225-member Karnataka assembly are openly associating with Yeddyurappa. At least four more assembly members have expressed allegiance to another party floated by B. Sriramulu, a former BJP minister and a loyalist of jailed mining baron G. Janardhana Reddy.But none of these rebels has quit the party or the assembly nor has the party taken action against them, creating a bizarre situation of what wags comment as "morning BJP, evening KJP".Shettar's predecessor D.V. Sadananda Gowda fell back on the Mahabharata to describe the situation: "Meals in Pandavas' house and meetings in Kauravas' house".Though disappointed that only around 15 BJP legislators were openly associating with him, Yeddyurappa kept up the rhetoric of bringing down the Shettar government sooner rather than later. In any case, he said he was determined not to allow Shettar to go ahead with his plans to present a full budget in the assembly in the first week of February.He has only ended up changing deadlines -- after taking over as KJP president Dec 9, he set Jan 4 as the 'D-Day', which on that day was moved to "after Sankranti".However, his drive to oust Shettar seems to have lost steam as many ministers, on whose resignation from the government he was banking on, have changed tune after the BJP announced that Shettar would lead the party in the polls.At least two ministers, C.M. Udasi (public works department) and Umesh Katti (agriculture), are now saying that Shettar would present the budget. Another five or six ministers, whose support Yeddyurappa was claiming, are said to be exploring chances of joining the Congress as they believe they have no future in the BJP and would not win contesting on the KJP ticket.This has forced Yeddyurappa to sing a different tune, saying he never set any deadline for the fall of the Shettar government. Now Yeddyurappa, the Congress and the JDS are all banking on Governor H.R. Bharadwaj to prevent Shettar from presenting the budget.Shettar is revelling in the situation.With the media almost daily asking him whether he would present the budget, Shettar is making the best of the opportunity.He not only says "100 percent" but reels out what the budget would be -- people-friendly with focus on agriculture, irrigation, poor people, women, minorities and education.Even if he does not present the budget, political fortunes have turned full circle for Shettar.In May 2008, the BJP central leadership bowed to Yeddyurappa who did not take Shettar into his cabinet as he considered him to be rival.Both belong to the dominant Lingayat caste, which makes up for about 17 percent of the state's 65 million population and on which the BJP depends heavily for votes.Now the BJP is relying on Shettar to lead it to power again.