Cool Breeze: Biting the JDS bullet

Biting the JDS bullet

With all polls predicting a neck to neck contest in Karnataka, the BJP is hoping that a Modi blitzkrieg will help it past the finishing line. From 1 May, the Prime Minister is scheduled to address 16 rallies in the state. But just in case this doesn’t work, the BJP has a Plan B. Talks are on for a post poll alliance with the H.D. Deve Gowda’s JDS. The only problem is that Congress has learnt its lesson from Meghalaya (where it reached out to Sangma’s party post the election results) and has also sent feelers to the JDS. This puts Deve Gowda in the enviable position of demanding the inevitable—a CM post for his son H.D. Kumaraswamy. It will be interesting to see which of the two national parties bites that particular bullet.

Self-goal for Congress?

Who was behind the Congress party’s impeachment move? Most of the senior lawyers in the party are against it, the former Prime Minister, too, did not sign the petition, and what is worse is that most of the allies are not supporting it, with the exception of D. Raja. who accompanied the Congress delegation to the President. Kapil Sibal is said to be the face of this move, but sources say that the idea came from Rahul Gandhi’s office. The Congress president seemed keen to send a message, not to the judiciary as much to the ruling party, especially after the judiciary refused to entertain pleas to open the Judge Loya death case. But given the fact that the judiciary was already on a collision course with the government, all the Congress has done is confused the narrative and plunged into a fight that wasn’t its to begin with. Is Rahul again reacting from instinct as he did when he tore up the UPA government’s ordinance?

Thanks but no thanks

Those hoping for other states to follow the example of Mayawati and Akhilesh and combine against the BJP—or the Congress—as the case may be, will be disappointed in Tamil Nadu. Both the AIADMK and the DMK are clear about one thing, that if they patch up, then they are only ceding the opposition space to one of the two national parties. And that is something they are dead against ever since way back in 1976 when Biju Patnaik had met M. Karunanidhi and MGR with this proposal. This thinking has not changed within the DMK, which gives a high precedence to the rights of the states versus the Centre and also within the Sasikala faction of the AIADMK. Hence, OPS’ moves to woo the BJP and play ball with the Centre have clearly backfired with both the cadres and the public.