‘Becoming the prime minister damaged my father’s political career’

• So an MLA from this constituency has a good chance of becoming the chief minister?

My friends always advised me that this is a very powerful place. They got me to contest from here.

• Mr Dharam Singh should have known this. Then he might have been less surprised at the result.

Actually I was not interested in assuming this responsibility at this juncture for various reasons. It were my MLAs who forced me to hold the chief minister’s office.

• When did you decide that it was time to pull the rug? Or did you know from day one that the Dharam Singh-Congress arrangement wasn’t going to work?

I didn’t know that I would be occupying this chair. It were only circumstances that forced me to accept the challenge.

• But why were you so unhappy with the arrangement? It was a secular arrangement.

Last time the voters gave a fractured verdict. It is the first time that the coalition era has started in the state assembly. At first our MLAs wanted to go to the BJP. But my father and others, because of this secular formula…

• Commitment…

Commitment. They decided to go with the Congress. My father requested Madam and Congress leaders to let us lead the coalition. At that time after a discussion of five days the Congress refused to let us take the leadership. Then they formulated the Maharashtra-pattern arrangement and we agreed to it. But from day one they did not implement it properly.

• Why do you say so?

Because the portfolio distribution itself wasn’t done according to the formula at the beginning. Then they took eight months for cabinet expansion. It was only after our MLAs got on one side and forced the cabinet expansion move that they did it.

• But it always seemed that the government wasn’t able to function properly because of your father blocking infrastructure projects and so on. He wrote these 33 letters.

Father’s only intention was to provide good governance, he wasn’t interfering with the government. He gave some suggestions which the previous government did not implement properly.

• Your father became the prime minister because of secular unity. He became the symbol of the secular third front government which was supported by the Congress from the outside. Now just for the sake of chief ministership you and your father have completely junked that idea of secular unity and aligned with the BJP.

My father was in no way involved with forming this new alliance with the BJP.

• But he has accepted it.

He has accepted it recently, but he has not accepted that he is very friendly with the BJP. He is saying that he opposes both the BJP and the Congress…

• I know politicians are creative people, they can give answers to many things, but let’s get this clear: Your father’s at peace with your chief ministership?

My father’s at peace with not my chief ministership but with my style of functioning.

• At peace with this arrangement? Because the day it was done he said it was the saddest day of my life.

He is at peace with my good governance. He still hasn’t accepted fully this alliance but…

• Politically you and your father are now one? You are no longer another faction of the party. You are together, right?

To save the party I requested father to accept this, and for the sake of the party father also agreed to accept this arrangement, temporarily.

• So it’s the first time your father has embraced the BJP?

This incident itself is a very sensitive issue. The MLAs approached me for this new alignment. Only at the last moment, after deciding to withdraw from the previous government did we meet father.

• You kept him in the dark?

Yes. Not only me, but all the MLAs…

• Will anybody believe this? Your father does 24 hours politics, I know him well. It is impossible to keep him in the dark.

He knew I will not go against the secular identity he had maintained for the last 40 years. But this time because of the force of the MLAs, for the sake of the party father had constructed and developed, I had to support their decision.

• But when I speak to the people in the Third Front about your father, to people in the Left, they say we gave the prime ministership to him for the cause of secularism, and he has junked it for the sake of chief ministership for his son.

That time the situation was different…

• But the question is valid.

At that time there was nobody willing to accept the prime ministership, and my father was forced to accept it. I also think that becoming the prime minister damaged his political career in a way.

• Becoming the prime minister damaged his political career?

It damaged the state. My father was doing very good work here when they dragged him to Delhi. My father was in no way connected to Delhi politics. If he would have been here the development work would have been much better.

• Mr Kumaraswamy when somebody enters politics he wants to become the prime minister of India. This is the first time I have heard that getting the supreme prize was a setback to one’s political career.

At that time there was a lot of future time available to him. But accepting the position at that time…

• But he did a good job in a very difficult situation.

He did a wonderful job there also. He was not associated with any corruption, any black marks…My father’s nature, even when he is holding high offices, is always to think about the common people’s problems.

• About the state?

His first priority has always been the state. Because for 40 years Karnataka has supported the Congress party but it has never got proper attention.

• I’m not disagreeing with this. Because I think that in today’s Indian politics the chief minister has in many ways become more powerful than the prime minister. You can put me in jail in five minutes, the prime minister cannot do it. So you have the power. But it’s the first time I have heard a senior successful minister admit that state power is more important than national power, that by accepting the arrangement at the centre your father may have sacrificed his political interests in the state. But does it also imply that in a state that was going to have coalitions your father had permanently denied the idea of going with the BJP? And you rectified it?

The situations were different in the two cases. When the coalition era started the people who got the majority in the states used their strength to develop their states.

• Give me an example.

For example Chandrababu Naidu, when he was supporting the NDA government and even when he was supporting the United Front government, he was using his strength in the state to develop Andhra Pradesh.

• So now that you have permanently given up the idea of joining a secular third front, because once you embrace the BJP it is very difficult to go there, do you see it as a fit price to pay?

In politics anything is possible. Today’s political parties who have been part of the secular force or of the communal force they have enjoyed power with each other. The best example is Tamil Nadu.

• So the DMK shared power with both the NDA and the UPA. And they shared power with your father as well in the UF.

That situation was different. There was nobody willing to accept the challenge and my father was forced to accept it.

• It was a secular compact. How strong is your and your father’s secular commitment?

I’ll tell you the Congress in the name of protecting the secular identity will take small parties’ support and then try to finish the parties. They tried to do the same to us. This was the reason that we decided to ally with the BJP.

• Working with the BJP, you don’t find it a communal force, a non-secular force?

In Karnataka the communal issue will not arise because it simply isn’t there like in other states that we have seen.

• Have you permanently closed the UPA option, that you’ll go only with the NDA, or are all options open at present?

In this matter whatever decision my father takes, and senior leaders of the party like M P Prakash, we are going to abide by that.

• In a future power sharing arrangement at the centre, would you say the BJP is no longer untouchable? That you can join an NDA like arrangement?

No party should be untouchable. Depending on the circumstances and choices, each party can take its own decision about this.

• The view of the Left is, and the view of the Congress is also that no matter what happens we are never going to ally with the BJP. They are untouchable. You are questioning that view?

My priority is the interest of my state…

• And your party’s interest too.

I don’t want to go deeper into this secular, communal issue. The development of the state is more important to me.

• I’m asking a different question. In terms of your politics you said that if your father had not taken up the prime ministership he would have strengthened the party here, and built it like the DMK in Tamil Nadu to gain more leverage in Delhi. So for you state politics is very important, and that is related to power in Delhi. If you acquire this power in the state all options are open, a United Front option, a Congress-UPA option, a BJP-NDA option. Is the DMK a good example for you?

My ambition is to strengthen the party…

• And the state.

And the state. That in the next election my party comes to power with a thumping majority, that is my ambition.

• That’s accepted. But is a regional party like the DMK your model?

I wouldn’t follow all that the DMK is doing…

• In terms of acquiring and using political leverage in Delhi is the DMK a good example?

If the people in the state give support to my party, I would do what Chandrababu Naidu, or the DMK and the AIADMK, have done when there’s a crisis in forming the government at the centre—give support to the government. And the way they are able to squeeze and extract central assistance, yes I would like to do that.

• I get your point. If you exclude a party, like the BJP or the Congress or the Left, then your scope for leverage in Delhi goes down.

At this point the BJP and our partnership is going very well. I don’t want to give any scope to differences that affects the good mutual understanding we have now. One time or the other the people in the BJP were members of the Janata Party and the Janata Dal.

• Many of them are from RSS as well. But tell me, your father was very unhappy with you. He fell sick and became bed-ridden. There are other people who say you were always together in all of this, that it was all a drama…

Everybody knows that my father was totally upset at this incident.

• How did you make up on this? Did you have an emotional meeting?

Through my style of functioning, with good governance I tried to convince father. Even when the government was functioning without his support I told the public I will win my father’s confidence by doing a good job.

• And he finally bought the story from you. Tell me, one problem with the previous government, and I raised this with your father as well as Mr Dharam Singh, was that this infrastructure development in Bangalore had just come to a standstill. And Mr Dharam Singh, though he didn’t say it on record, his government’s excuse was that your father was opposed to IT, BT, Bangalore city—that he created this fake divide between rural and urban Karnataka. He was stalling everything.

My father was not against IT. It was during his days that the IT boom in fact started. But the previous government had failed to develop the IT infrastructure, to win the confidence of investors. Now they are charging my father for all this negativity. I have done very well in these three months that I have been chief minister. I am giving top priority to all the infrastructure that the investors need.

• Your highway work has restarted.

Yes, flyover work, widening of roads. For traffic problem also we have allotted Rs 40 crores in this budget.

• What about your airport?

By January 2008 we are planning to inaugurate it. The work is going very fast.

• The Metro? All these were supposedly held up by your father’s influence.

My father, when he was the prime minister. approved the Delhi Metro project. And he asked the central government to assist in a Metro in Bangalore along the same lines.

• So are you fully supporting the Bangalore Metro now?

We are supporting it and we have taken all initiatives. The process is going on. Along with the Metro I am also planning additional projects.

• The mono rail?

The mono rail, BMTC improvements.

• You are not hostile to your IT and BT industry?

They are all friendly with me, they have confidence in me now.

• So no IT entrepreneurs, BT entrepreneurs, professionals coming into Bangalore need to worry.

Yes. Everybody is happy now. Every week new investors are coming. Since the time I took over the responsibility I have cleared 29,000 crore worth of investment.

• Because you have competition now, from Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon. Bangalore’s monopoly is gone.

In my view everybody who comes to India still wants to come to Bangalore first.

• And you are not going to do anything to damage that? Because for some time the impression went around that Bangalore had been junked.

I’ll improve that. I’ll improve all district headquarters also. I’ve been telling investors to go to other districts as well and whatever infrastructure they need we’ll provide that.

• And what’s happening on the Bangalore-Mysore expressway? Even after the Supreme Court cleared it there are still problems in it?

Whatever our legal experts say about that, we’ll go along with it.

• But are you for the project or against the project?

We are for the project only, I am not against any developmental work.