The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Bribery row dents BJP image

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 17, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Bribery row dents BJP image

A. Jayaram

The BJP has come out badly in the episode and must be ruing the day when it admitted moneybags from Bellary district into the party

Bangalore: It is naivete on the part of the second-line Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and magnanimity in the case of its coalition partner the Janata Dal (Secular) which has closed the chapter or episode of the bribery charge against Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.

It is also one of the first or few cases of a Chief Minister being accused of accepting illegal gratification.

For relatively minor allegations of favouritism, D. Devaraj Urs and Ramakrishna Hegde had to face commissions of inquiry.

The BJP member of the Legislative Council Janardhana Reddy, who levelled the allegation and repeated it at two press conferences held on consecutive days, might not have thought of the consequences it would have on the coalition.

That the BJP has come to power for the first time in Karnataka, after decades of defeats in the elections and that it is today only a partner in a coalition, did not matter for the first-time MLC who was elected on June 1.

District politics

It is apparent that Bellary district level politics and his own business interests weighed with him more than those of the party and the Government.

Mr. Reddy, who has hardly spoken in the Council, was vociferous before the television cameras levelling allegations against the Chief Minister and the Minister for Forests C. Chennigappa.

It is again being said that he was being egged on by some leaders in the party who are uncomfortable with B.S. Yediyurappa being the Deputy Chief Minister.

Some of those leaders have no stakes in elections to the Legislative Assembly and do not fear dissolution of the House as they are members of the Lok Sabha or the Council.

Credibility hit

The credibility of Mr. Yediyurappa has suffered as he had to perform the thankless job of denying the truth, that Mr. Reddy did indeed level the allegations. Mr. Yediyurappa's spoken word will not carry much weight hereafter following his denial of what Mr. Reddy had told the television channels and the newspapers.

On his part, the Chief Minister has displayed restraint in reacting to the allegations against him.

He only said that he could not imagine such a large amount of money — Rs.150 crore.

Mr. Reddy had alleged that Mr. Kumaraswamy received that amount collected from Bellary mine owners engaged in illegal mining through Mr. Chennigappa.

Only the Minister for Forests was in his characteristic combative mood when he challenged Mr. Reddy to prove his allegation.

Mr. Kumaraswamy could have terminated the alliance with the BJP as such allegations were not exchanged even at the high noon of Congress-Janata Dal (S) exchanges when N. Dharam Singh was the Chief Minister.

Janata Party rule

Observers see in the just subsided bribery issue, the type of allegations and counter allegations which were being traded when the Janata Party was ruling at the Centre.

The Charan Singh-Raj Narain axis used to target Kanti Desai, son of the then Prime Minister Moraraji Desai and the senior Cabinet Minister Jagjivan Ram and his son.

Mudslinging

The Janata or Janata Dal governments in the State headed by Ramakrishna Hegde had generated internal mudslinging, but they came nowhere near the Rs.150-crore mark.

The BJP has come out badly in the episode and must be ruing the day when it admitted moneybags from Bellary district into the party, though in the short run it might have helped it end the long years of Congress supremacy in that mineral rich district.

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