HD Kumaraswamy's 'anguish' over coalition is all about JD(S) survival; Karnataka CM in no hurry to lose power

Wondering what governance means? Don’t. Just come to Karnataka and find a spanking new definition for it. Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal (Secular) would tell you that a government is an endowment trust, and governance means dishing out charity to vote banks. He may add that, during the intervals between episodes of freebie-distribution, a government may, if it so desires, address press conferences or attend to natural calamities. With the Lok Sabha election less than a year away, Kumaraswamy finds that the best way to govern is to pass around goodies. Voters will then come rushing to EVMs and press the right buttons, won’t they? [caption id=“attachment_4506515” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy. AP[/caption] Even for Siddaramaiah of Congress, who was the chief minister till Kumaraswamy took over seven weeks ago, this was precisely what governance was all about. The only difference was that he had an eye on the Assembly election in May. Now that both JD(S) and Congress are part of Karnataka’s ruling alliance, they should be happy that populism has only doubled. Right? Wrong. They have ended up competing in appeasement, as though it’s a game of throwing nets to fish for voters. Competitive populism between rival parties in a state is nothing new, but in Karnataka now, the financially disastrous one-upmanship in phoney socialism exists between parties of the same alliance. If Kumaraswamy broke down at a party meeting on Saturday, it was because Congress is not letting his populism getting the better of its own. Loan-waiver for more farmers But there is one problem. Populism begets more populism. Kumaraswamy waived off loans up to Rs 2 lakh taken by 17 lakh farmers till 31 December, 2017. But farmers weren’t happy enough. So on 12 July, he extended the cut-off date to 10 July, raising the number of beneficiaries to 22 lakh. He had first offered an incentive of Rs 25,000 to each farmer who had actually repaid a loan but raised it to Rs 1 lakh after demands. Siddaramaiah was announcing all this the very same day the RBI came out, once again, with a  stiff warning that loan waivers would bloat fiscal deficits and raise inflation. But RBI doesn’t contest elections, does it? Kumaraswamy is also seriously thinking of writing off education loans taken by graduates. And his father and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, who does plenty of backseat driving for the government, is hinting at waiving the loans of women’s self-help groups. Fishermen are now demanding that their loans, too, be written off. You can expect more to join this queue.

Congress is clearly suspicious that the chief minister and his party will walk away with all the credit for the coalition’s collective generosity at the time of Lok Sabha polls. They even suspect that JD(S) aims to pick up as many LS seats as possible so that Gowda can manoeuvre himself to become the prime minister once again in case of a fractured result.

Congress leaders even claim that the loan-waiver is largely benefitting farmers in the southern districts where JD(S) is strong. What’s worse, Kumaraswamy reduced the quantity of free rice supplied under Siddaramaiah’s pet Anna Bhagya scheme. He did this, among other things, to mop up funds for his loan-waivers. Siddaramaiah and his acolytes are screaming murder. With tears in eyes, Kumaraswamy asked at a JD(S) meeting on Saturday: “Now, they want seven kg rice (a month) instead of five kg, but from where should I get Rs 2,500 crore for this?” How long will the coalition last? Kumaraswamy compared his plight of heading this coalition to “swallowing poison”. His anguish centres around the survival of JD(S). What determines a regional outfit’s alliances with national parties is survival. A national party only in name, Congress too is fighting for its own survival. In theory, the alliance of the two can work to mutual benefit. But their potential support bases are not mutually exclusive: they compete for the same voters, largely in the same regions of the state. Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s intentions to ensure a united fight against BJP notwithstanding, his local leaders want to save their own faces — and turfs — instead of being seen as subservient to JD(S). They are unwilling to let Kumaraswamy get away with whatever he wants to do, and the pressure is beginning to tell on him, reducing him to tears. Sham threats to quit “If the pressure gets to me, I’ll have no hesitation in resigning in less than a couple of hours,” Kumaraswamy claimed. He had threatened to quit even earlier when he was fed up with Congress’ demands for plum portfolios. But nobody should take Kumaraswamy’s threats to resign seriously. Nobody does.

Kumaraswamy is not in a hurry to lose power and all the bonanza it brings, though he is not physically as fit as he would have liked to be.

He has been through two heart surgeries, something he keeps talking about. Deve Gowda harps on how his son works 18 hours a day. Kumaraswamy will quit only in the unlikely case of his health not permitting him to continue or when he convinces himself that the alliance stunts his party’s long-term growth. Right now, it’s the Congress leaders who are convinced that the alliance would be bad for it in the 2019 poll. But can Rahul do something smart to turn the situation to his party’s advantage? Nobody can count on it, because the Congress president is still a political upstart, despite claims by his admirers and fake Left intellectuals. And he is just as unlikely to wind up the alliance since that would leave him open to the charge of scuttling ‘Opposition Unity’. That would continue to frustrate Congress leaders and that, in turn, could potentially wreck the party’s prospects in 2019. For now, Rahul will do the only thing he can: keep his fingers crossed except when he tweets his silly wisecracks. Author tweets @sprasadindia