Degrees of change

In the end,the BJP finally managed to claim some high moral ground in Karnataka by allowing its MLAs a secret ballot to choose B.S. Yeddyurappa’s successor as chief minister. Yet the manoeuvre that recommends itself as proof of intra-party democracy was in fact a last-ditch survival tactic. The party leadership could not mediate between rival factions,one led by Yeddyurappa,whose presumed nominee,D.V. Sadananda Gowda eventually trumped Jagdish Shettar,believed to be the national unit’s choice. So,even as the vote gives Gowda’s elevation a legitimacy so uncommon in Indian politics,the open warfare between the two factions that preceded the vote must alert him to his immediate task of averting rebellious moves. Political stability is,by every account,still to be hard-won in Karnataka — as underlined by the absence of the Shettar faction at Gowda’s swearing-in ceremony on Thursday evening.

Yet,the larger question in Karnataka is,can the regime change bring a change in the style of governance? Yeddyurappa’s tenure was controversial from the very beginning for his individual conduct,and to the extent that Gowda is his nominee,the manner in which cases against Yeddyurappa are proceeded upon will reveal his continued influence or lack of it. Given that this week’s outing of the factionalism in the BJP’s Karnataka unit threatened to split the party down the middle,Gowda also needs to pull the state government back from the brinkmanship of the past three years. That is the only way he can ensure the dignity required to govern credibly. Yeddyurappa had made a fine art of using his government’s permanent state of crisis — and the balancing of interests that sustained his chief ministership — to blur all lines of accountability. For instance,on the Reddy brothers of Bellary.

For now,the BJP has managed its way out of a power struggle that threatened to pull down its first ever single-party government in Karnataka. But it is not clear whether it has the wits required to transform the government from what has been till now a holding operation. Every regime has some measure of competing interests. But the Karnataka government has been,for these three years,a balance of competing obfuscations,with different power blocs seeking to be put beyond political and administrative accountability. If Gowda’s chief ministership is just about the exit of Yeddyurappa,not enough would have changed in Karnataka.