Larger stakes

The BJPs internal tensions have erupted in public again,this time over the question of who made the dodgy decision to associate with the powerful mining lobby in Karnataka. After Sushma Swaraj disclaimed all responsibility for the Bellary brothers making it to the state cabinet,saying that Arun Jaitley,Rajnath Singh,B.S. Yeddyurappa and others made that decision out of political compulsions,party chief Nitin Gadkari has made it clear that it was the BJPs unanimous decision.

However,apart from the shadow-boxing in the BJPs leadership,the big question is why is the party looking so scattered in a state that was one of its biggest political achievements,won after years of patient organisation-building in the South? Karnataka has become a glaring moral liability,making it difficult for the BJP to make unambiguous statements on the pressing questions of our politics now crony capitalism,the optimal way to allocate natural resources,how to maintain a balance between local leaders and the central party organisation. It could have been a test case for the BJP,a platform to display its forward-looking policy ideas. Instead,the highly questionable moves to get its numbers right are draining the Karnataka unit of all coherence. The Supreme Courts ruling earlier this month was a severe statement on the legislative drama that occurred last year,when the Yeddyurappa government was a hairsbreadth away from collapse. There is little the party can do rhetorically or tactically to embarrass the UPA government on its overly mischievous governor in Bangalore,as long as its Karnataka record can be flung back at it.

More worryingly,this confusion points to the Opposition-shaped hole at the national level. In these recent assembly elections that decimated the Left and did nothing much for the Congress,the BJP won a total of six seats. Granted,they were held in areas where it has no traditional presence,but for a party that aims to revive itself as a second pole around which smaller parties can be rallied,the inordinate excuse-making in and on Karnataka cannot be a good strategy.