Of egos, tantrums and prima donnas

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If it’s confession time, mine would be that I have more respect for a man - or a woman - who picks solititude over the clamour, and has the ability to arrive at a conclusion independent of pressure groups, rather than someonewho is led by the nose by so-called “friends” on all matters of the heart and head. The chatter alone would drown out rational thought.

Someone who understands the power of the written and spoken word, be it prose or poetry, fiction or non-fiction, will relish being provoked, at being prodded into polemics where the sparks fly, at being forced to look at all sides, before haring off to battle. That's the mark of a man. Correction. That's the mark of a leader of men. Cautious but not timid, and always, willing to stand up for what he or she believes in.

But where are these knights — safari-suited if you’re BJP, khadi-clad if you're Congress — in this murky political arena? Their closed minds and inability to connect, or lay out their thoughts for us, the ordinary folk, to assess, guage whether they are ‘the one’, is troubling. As is their lack of maturity, this ‘kaan ka kacchha’ brigade.

The man who listens to the whispers of court and coterie, who does not, or worse, cannot take an independent decision and is therefore flawed... now, that kind does not heed his inner voice. And once you turn a deaf ear to the voice of reason and fall prey to gossip, innuendo, rumour and hearsay, and pillow-talk then you are doomed.

Look no further than our current denizens of the august Vidhana Soudha. Far more numerous than previously thought. Not just at home - why does my mother-in-law hate me — but in the corridors of power, in the corporate world, among the political class.. And methinks that may be part of what ails the Congress' wannabe chief minister Mr Siddaramaiah whose stature while remarkable, is marred nevertheless by an inexplicable bent to throw tantrums at the slightest provocation.

He wasn't a good fit in his previous avatar as a leader of the Kurubas in a smaller party. He was uncomfortable, in the Janata Dal of the masterly politician Deve Gowda, who kept him cabin'd, cribbed, confined. (In case, he overshadowed the party’s many heir apparents.)

But in the Congress, faction-ridden as it is, he has had more than a chance to carve a niche as the leader of the state's third largest community. The Kurubas may not be a community that is as big or as influential as the Dalits, who, in the larger caste calculations have a much bigger voter footprint. (And that's unlikely to get somebody like G. Parameshwar anywhere either, even though he's a Dalit.) But Siddaramaiah has a substantial following and to translate that into a play for the future, for the big stakes is what one would have done if one were in his chappals.

Instead, Congress insiders insist that he — not they - sees himself as the perennial outsider, who even after six years has not become a seamless part of the whole. In a party where seasoned old-timers like Oscar Fernandes and Mallikarjun Kharge and of course, S.M. Krishna continue to have a say, not so much because of their caste and community but for the substantial work they have put in, in growing the party to where it was in the face of the manifest charisma of people like Ramakrishna Hegde and Deve Gowda, Siddaramaiah has not much to nail on the marquee.

Insiders say he hasn't really pulled out all the stops in organizing street protests. And barring the mandatory bellicosity in the assembly and the Bellary yatra, he hasn't much to show. Does he not have the wherewithal to fund party functions and rallies? Is this why, he throws the occasional temper tantrum so that he gets noticed by Delhi? Insiders say they cannot really fathom him but do say that if he must find his place in the rough and tumble of Congress politics, he must be able to carry everyone with him, be it friend or foe.

Time, is right now on Siddaramaiah’s side. And just as at the national level, the beleagured Congress, beset as it is with charges of corruption and malfeasance is treading water as it watches the BJP trying to reinvent itself, so too the BJP in Karnataka where the former chief minister was missing from the big ticket investors conference and the MLC elections.

The Congress has time to take stock, hone a strategy that will make it a contender for office. It's got 12 whole months from today. That’s a lucky break. For Siddu, this must be the time and the opportunity to scale down his many rough edges and network, build bridges with the party stalwarts rather than work at cross-purposes.

If it is true as is being said that Siddu did back three out of the four nominees for the MLC seats, and was miffed only because his friend C.M. Ibrahim did not make the cut for the final seat, then the whole drama of handing over his resignation as CLP leader — and then taking it back — is not a good augury. It smacks of hot-headedness, of decisions taken in haste, and regret when the blood has run cold. You don’t stake your future over one man. That — and pardon me borrowing a phrase from my 16 year old — is too emo (!!) for anybody!

If Siddu, the prima donna, does want to be acknowledged as THE leader then he must earn the respect of his peers. Not demand it. He could show exactly what he was made of at today’s Legislative Council elections. Unless that’s exactly what he didn't want. After all, the margin of victory in his own election was wafer thin. ’Twas no landslide for the heavyweight.

But then, as the wise man once said “Respect cannot be forced, purchased, or acquired. It can only be earned.” And this is where he could have earned his first real spurs. The elections to the upper house may not generate the heat of a direct election. But let’s not forget that just as the Bellary and Udupi-Chikmagalur bypolls — to the lower house — marked the slow but steady decline of the BJP even in its own bastions, Sunday's vote could be a harbinger, a flag to the future.

Will the shaky BJP manage to scramble back from the edge, hang on to its voter base, its stalwarts like Ramachandra Gowda, hold their own? Will the independents — like the cerebral, erudite Ashwin Mahesh - make a dent?

Or will the Congress — despite and inspite of the Siddu tantrum and the B.S. Yeddyurappa cold shoulder — make short shrift of the saffronists?