Will the state witness a rerun of 2008?
Looks like the time of political turmoil of 2008 is probably going to haunt us again. Yeddyurappa, who is now the chief minister of Karnataka and the lone member of his cabinet, took oath to the office of CM, wore the same metaphor of a green shawl around his shoulders as he had done when he became the CM for the first time in 2008. That day, he had 110 seats with him. Today, he has only 104 seats to his party as electoral victory. The shortage of seats to show majority stood at just 3. And to his advantage JD(S) and Congress together hadn’t shown any inclination to form the government. Hence, the party began buying out the MLAs from other quarters. This was hailed as the finest example of political acumen by the majority of the media.
‘Operation Kamala’ thus was seen as a very smart move where an elected representative could be bought over for money or greed of power. This was democracy on sale. While people chose their representatives through votes, BJP could choose the buying price of any MLA through money. It meant, a mandate could be twisted and turned for money. Reddy brothers had played a major role in government formation on that day and hence they could gain control over the government headed by BS Yeddyurappa. As a result, though BSY was the CM, Reddys could run a quasi-government through him or without him. Now it could be an irony of time that the same Reddys who aided BSY’s elevation as CM, were also responsible for his ouster with their blatant misuse of power. People of the state consider the BJP government of that day some sort of a nightmare owing to the fact that the state saw three chief ministers and two deputy chief ministers during the five year tenure. The party that always stood in the opposition could never bring itself to be responsible about the office of the CM and government it had occupied. As a result of this, BJP was decimated in the next round of elections.
Now, the history has repeated itself. Compared to 2008, BJP’s position is even more concerning. This time the party needs over 10 members to ensure the government is stable. More significant development that happened this time around, was the coming together of JD(S) and Congress rather quickly just as the results began to roll out. Congress announced its open support to JD(S) to form the government and JD(S) quickly lapped it up to stake claim on forming the government with its rival-once-partner-now party. Their only agenda was to keep BJP out of power. Hence, Congress with its higher numbers of elected representatives and vote share, didn’t hesitate even once to offer the CM’s post to JD(S) which has only 37 seats. Including Siddaramaiah, all leaders set their differences aside and came together to make Kumaraswamy the Chief Minister. And till such time, the discussion of ‘Dalit CM’ that was in circulation, took a different turn. In this coalition, Dr S Parameshwar will be made the Deputy CM thus ensuring dalits are represented well in this government should it come into existence. Bath parties have informed the governor about their coming together to form the government and that they also have the numbers. But the governor has favoured BJP and invited BSY to form the government. In case of two parties not coming together, had the governor invited BJP, the move would have been appropriate. But what has now happened is that BJP does not have the numbers, and yet they have been called to form the government. Does this not amount to governor indirectly aiding trade of MLAs by giving time and opportunity to BJP? Though the Supreme Court will hear this case again this morning, there is no guarantee that the ruling could be fair. In other states, the example is contrary to that of what has happened in Karnataka. Though other parties were the largest in numbers, BJP and coalition were invited to form the government. The court may consider these examples of subverting of power and democracy by BJP through various offices when the case is presented. But then, it may rule differently too, considering the influence BJP has on several agencies of the government.
All said and done the Reddy brothers who were being designated to some random corner, have now come to the forefront again. Today, an MLA is said to fetch more than 100 cr in the ‘market’ created by the BJP. Why would a party spend more than Rs 500 cr on buying MLAs? And what message does it send about BJP possessing that money even after all the measures they took to curb corruption and black money? The common man stands penniless before ATMs today and all the black money claimed to have been curbed by the BJP seems to have accumulated at one point. It is not difficult to guess who holds all the money now. Horse trading is in progress.
Should the BJP get the numbers and stay put in the office, state will witness days worse than 2008 in the near future.
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'Anti-poor' Modi govt bent on 'oppressing' MGNREGA workers: Mallikarjun Kharge
New Delhi (PTI): Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday alleged that the "anti-poor" Modi government is bent on "oppressing" MGNREGA workers and reiterated the party's demands that their minimum wage per day be fixed at Rs 400 and that they be provided at least 150 days of work in a year.
Kharge shared on X a media report which claimed that the government is unlikely to raise the daily floor wage under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) substantially, on top of the usual annual hike, despite recommendations by two panels.
"It seems that the anti-people Modi government has refused to increase MGNREGA wages. This is like attacking the rights of MGNREGA workers," Kharge said in a post in Hindi on X.
He pointed out that recently, the Joint Parliamentary Committee had recommended increasing the daily wage of MGNREGA workers to Rs 400 per day.
"Amarjeet Sinha's High Level Committee formed in 2023 had also suggested increasing wages and increasing the budget of MGNREGA. But the anti-poor Modi government is bent on oppressing MGNREGA workers," the Congress chief said.
Be it excluding nearly seven crore registered workers from MGNREGA by imposing the condition of Aadhaar-based payment, or allocating the lowest MGNREGA budget in the last 10 years as compared to the total budget, the Modi government has been negatively impacting MGNREGA, he said.
"MGNREGA - Employment guarantee scheme was brought by the Congress Party for the poorest families of our country. We are firm on our two demands — Minimum wage of Rs 400 per day should be fixed for MGNREGA workers and at least 150 days of work in a year be provided to them," Kharge said.
