The Hindu : Karnataka News : Mysore musings

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Mysore musings

Spinning conspiracy theories

How best to explain defeat and setbacks in real life as well as in politics ? Blame it on rivals. Or better yet, spin a conspiracy theory.

Having lost the recent Lok Sabha elections in Mysore constituency by a wafer-thin margin, C.H. Vijayashankar of the BJP attributed his defeat to a conspiracy of caste hatched by his rivals. This, despite the fact that caste politics is deeply entrenched among the political class.

So much so that caste calculations play an important role in allotment of ticket for candidates to contest from a particular constituency.

But the public is told that the selection of a particular candidate depends on the “winnability factor”.

All the parties are adept at this game of caste calculations and hair-splitting analysis. It was no different in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Mysore where the Congress upset the BJP applecart.

Though it has been almost 10 days since the results were announced, Mr. Vijayashankar is yet to come out of the shock as evident from his conspiracy theory. Interestingly, Mr. Vishwanath, who lost in the Assembly elections last year, had spun a similar tale to explain his defeat. This underlines another trait of politicians which perhaps acts as a shock absorber: to live in a state of denial rather than face grim reality.

Overconfidence leads to defeat?

Sometimes over confidence proves costlier than expected. It seems that is what happened to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) district unit, which was confident of party candidate and former MP C.H. Vijayashankar winning the Lok Sabha elections in Mysore.

Though the political atmosphere was initially conducive for the BJP, top party leaders, including district in-charge Minister Shobha Karandlaje failed to exploit that, according to party workers and senior leaders.

Party leaders were confident as Madikeri and Virajpet in Kodagu district, which were BJP bastions, were included in the Mysore Lok Sabha constituency after delimitation. But Congress candidate Adaguru H. Vishwanath succeeded in securing over 82,000 votes in both constituencies. Similarly, Mr. Vijayashankar was confident that the electorate of his native place, Periyapatna, would support him. However, he secured the least number of votes there.

Despite announcing Mr. Vijayashankar’s candidature much before the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) could announce their candidates, the party workers did not make the best use of the opportunity.

Ms. Karandlaje’s attitude of riding roughshod over senior party leaders was also one of the reasons for the defeat of the BJP candidate, as she did not attempt to address the discontent among old-timers in the party who were upset with the perks given to new entrants.

At the same time she failed to assess the strengths of senior Congress leaders, the former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the former Union Minister and Dalit leader, V. Srinivas Prasad, who employed every strategy to ensure Mr. Vishwanath’s victory.

R.KRISHNA KUMAR

MURALIDHARA KHAJANE

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