Saffron take: How to make enemies and lose friends

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The level of vitriol that has marked the verbal sparring between the chief minister and his increasingly acerbic predecessor may have shocked no-one in a profession where muck-raking is par for the course.

Now, was that where the term ‘politics of the gutter’ came from….

The barbs this week though, demonstrate how far and how deep the rift is between the two men. Or should that be, between the former chief minister and his party? ‘Cos, something is definitely afoot.

And it’s not just the sacking by Sadananda Gowda of one B.S. Yeddyurappa supporter after another. That’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Was the chief minister drawing a line in the sand, that he expects the complete unswerving loyalty of everyone who serves in the chief minister’s office? Yeah, that’s the obvious one. But the more subtle red flag could be that Sadananda Gowda, in demonstrating that he has a spine, could be signalling that the doors are closing on Yeddyurappa. And they both know it.

The sacking itself, if you ask me was coming, some say even long overdue. Perhaps, when he had taken over and then found that loyalties did not automatically switch to his camp, Gowda would have been better served if he had started with a clean slate, and appointed his own people. Instead, resentments have festered for eight long months or thereabouts. An error, surely, of epic proportions.

The wall to wall interview that BSY then gave to a leading Kannada daily was by far the most stinging attack unleashed by any one BJP leader against another in recent times. Uma Bharti, notwithstanding.

The points BSY made may have not been subtle. Some sail dangerously close to blasphemy, with BSY saying that BJP leaders exhibited more enthusiasm in prosecuting the many “false” corruption cases against him than members of the opposition.

Now, if that isn’t guaranteed to get up the BJP high command’s nose, nothing else is…Who was he targeting? Ananth Kumar and L.K. Advani? K.S. Eshwarappa? What was the interview about, getting even or a ploy to get the high command’s attention?

But then he’s done nothing but that, ever since he was persuaded to step down. And the perceived slights and sense of humiliation have grown, taken on a gargantuan size, driving him to go public with what he has been saying sotto voce to his inner circle for some months now. If that wasn’t a cardinal error on the part of the BJP bigwigs, here’s more – who gave the BJP at the centre, the completely false impression that a man as driven as Yeddyurappa would allow someone, anyone, to dictate the terms and conditions of surrender, his own surrender. That he would willingly write his own epitaph?

Yeddyurappa isn’t built to sit quietly on the sidelines, chewing his fingernails and watching the world go by. This is a man, people tell me, who barely needs four hours of sleep, who drives everyone who works with him as hard as he drives himself. As for holidays…the less said….

Add all of these up and you have one very unhappy man. Is the BJP at the centre unable to read the signals? It’s there for anyone who can see through the smoke. The reading is that Yeddyurappa has stepped so far out of the saffron zone that he already has one step in another. Everyone is denying it of course. But most journos who eat, breathe and sleep the BJP say that Delhi is worried about a BSY exit and that sending one Dharmendra Pradhan is their first attempt at throwing the angry old man yet another line. But going fishing in this ‘unplacid’ pond is not going to be easy. Will BSY bite? And why does Ashoka Road believe that keeping BSY dangling serves any purpose beyond riling him? He doesn’t want a status quo!

And he’s thrown out some very interesting lines, saying at one juncture as he flung accusations of ‘misgovernance’ and charges about how drought relief was at the bottom of the hapless, desk-bound chief minister’s list of priorities, and then heading straight for the north, that he was planning to invite the Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the birthday celebrations of Dr Shivakumar Swamiji, Mathadipati of the Siddaganga math in Tumkur towards the end of April!

More than any other announcement, be it the proposed link up with the Valmiki strongman and Gali Janardhan Reddy’s wingman Sreeramulu, talk of floating a new party, even the resort hooha which was to show how many people were with him, this was the closest that Yeddyurappa has come to dropping the biggest hint – it’s no longer even that anymore, now is it – that, if the BJP top brass continued to treat him like a pariah, putting off his reinstatement under some pretext or the other, he did have other viable options. And that his ability to deliver the 18 per cent Lingayat vote in toto should not be taken lightly.

The Congress party, post its Udupi-Chikmagalur win, a seat that the BJP literally handed over to the Congress on a platter, can smell blood. For the past week, the Congress’ Parameshwar and other luminaries are said to have been spotted at the Siddaganga math, seat of Lingayat temporal power, several times. Insiders say that both Yeddyurappa and G. Parameshwar are quietly working towards the math playing host to Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi when the seer marks his 105th birthday plus celebrations. If they do pull it off, and the Congress wins the blessings of the Lingayat maths at the behest of Yeddyurappa, then the saffron party’s worst nightmare will have come true.

The Congress’ external affairs minister in persuading the aviation minister to agree to rename Bengaluru International Airport, Kempe Gowda International Airport is similarly a move to reclaim lost ground in the state that the Congress handed over on a platter to the Janata Dal (S) and the BJP.

Garnering the Lingayat vote through BSY and the Vokkaliga vote through S.M. Krishna and the Congress may have a sure thing in the making here in Karnataka. That the party bigwigs have persuaded the permanently feuding leaders to bury the hatchet may help in a party known as a divided house. As for the BJP, they have now mastered that little known art – how to make enemies and lose friends.