Political Opportunism on Display in Karnataka

It’s election time and also political churning. Aya Rams and Gaya Rams ahead of polls by those who are denied party tickets shifting their loyalties have become a norm before any elections. But, what surprises many is that of late, even the so-called party with a difference and also of hard-grinned Sanathanis like Saffron party, members too becoming ‘political opportunists’. This is evident from the former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shivappa Shettar’s choice to join the party which had been a ‘hate’ to his three generations. Reasons best known to the party, the BJP’s top brass consisting of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party’s national president JP Nadda, under the able guidance of their iconic figure and election-winner and prime minister Narendra Modi, denied the party ticket to their one of the senior leaders Jagdish Shettar. A cribbing and sulking Shettar, who held out a 48-hour threat, and when the party leadership in Delhi refused to budge, he opted to join the Congress inthepresence of its President Mallikharjun Kharge. Why political analysts were aghast was what way he is going to benefit him joining his family-hated party like the Congress. Already the Congress is yet to overcome internal party wrangling over who is going to be the next chief minister if the party wins. They are the state party president DK Shivkumar and former chief minister Siddhramaiah, besides the AICC President Kharge himself. DKS and Siddharamaiah’s political rivalry is well known and each other tries to be always at each other’s throats, in a bid to prove that they enjoy the blessings of Delhi leaders. Interestingly, during the elections, even astrologers held some influence. And this was evident from when he predicted that DKS stars are good and he can help the party win, and then Siddharamaiah camp was quick to clip his wings through the party’s high command which appointed a senior MLA as the Working President. To counter that, DKS dropped enough hints that he may not be in the CM’s race but proposed Mallikarjun Kharge, who also hails from Karnataka, as the right and neutral candidate. While this confusion was prevailing in the Congress party, the BJP’s stalwart Shettar’s decision had also come as a shock to the state and national party leadership. Simply, because they know, Shettar, who belongs to the Lingayat sect, can ruin the BJP’s determination to return to power for the second consecutive term, breaking the 45-year-old jinx. That is no party was voted back to power in the state since 1985. Sixty-eight years Shettar has served as chief minister for just a year during 2012-13. He later became an Opposition leader, when the coalition government had fallen apart. He belongs to the family of Jan Sanghis, the earlier avatar of the BJP. He also served as a cabinet minister during Yediyurappa’s tenure. His father S.S. Shettar was a senior activist of the Jana Sangh and got elected five times to the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation and also became the first Mayor of Hubli. His uncle Sadashiv Shettar was the first Jana Sangh leader in South India to get elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. He was elected from Hubli City in 1967. He belongs to the Banajiga sub-sect of the Lingayat community. He was a member of the BJP, which he quit on being denied the MLA ticket in 2023. He represented the Hubli-Dharwad Central Vidhan Sabha seat, which he resigned in 2023 before the elections. His quitting the party, that too coming from the family of the saffron party, the BJP may have to do some introspection, as their hardcore members too are becoming selfish as well as power-hungry, from the general public perception that they care a damn for positions in the party hierarchy like in other Opposition parties like the Congress or other regional satraps. It’s irony of sorts that saffron no more appears as a holy color of Sanatana Dharma, if the ‘change in the mindset of Shettar like senior members, who are willing to denigrate it (saffron color) like the Rajdeeps and Ravish Kumars, for a few chips. Now, one has to wait and see how Shettar joing the age-old Congress will help change its fortunes, or the Lingayat community’s tallest leader Yediyurappa, who assured to campaign across the state, including Shettar’s constituency, help party to return to power.