Two hours before the floor test was to happen, the narrative on TV stations started changing. That was the first indication that the BJP had thrown in the towel. Anchors started pushing the line that the BJP high command was not too pleased with BS Yeddyurappa’s efforts to get a majority by hook or by crook. The attempt was to distance the leadership in New Delhi from the MLA-shopping that the leaders in Karnataka were indulging in. Difficult to say how many people were convinced that in the BJP — where the entire Karnataka election was coordinated from Delhi and not Bengaluru — such a plan would be executed without the high command kept in the loop.
But why and when exactly did the BJP decide to throw in the towel?
The party was thrilled to bits when a generous Governor Vajubhai Vala gave Yeddyurappa 15 days to prove his majority. Given the resources at the BJP’s command, the party managers reckoned it to be enough time to cobble up the numbers to move from 104 to 112. The task had already been outsourced to B Sriramulu and the Reddy brothers from Ballari. After all, they had the experience of managing extra numbers a decade ago through Operation Kamala.
Work began in earnest on both the Congress and the JD(S) legislators. The plan was to convince the Congress MLAs to abstain, to bring down the strength of the House, and win over a significant chunk of the JD(S) to vote in its favour. Fourteen MLAs were specifically targeted based on their past affiliation with the BJP, any CBI or Income tax cases, the region they came from or the Lingayat factor. 18 Congress MLAs and two JD(S) MLAs are Lingayats and the BJP’s aim was to play on the community, emotional card to make them ally with a Lingayat CM, Yeddyurappa.
But the decision of the Supreme court, to advance the floor test to Saturday, put a spanner in the works for the BJP. There just was not sufficient time to convince such a large number to move out in the BJP’s favour. The move by the Congress to shift its lawmakers out of Karnataka under former Energy minister DK Shivakumar’s supervision, also made it difficult for the BJP.
It was not just a BJP vs Congress-JDS battle of wits. At an individual level, it boiled down to the might of the BJP machinery versus Shivakumar’s chutzpah. The Vokkaliga strongman took charge of the situation, trying to outthink the BJP. He had the experience, having protected the Gujarat MLAs during the Rajya Sabha election last year, ensuring Ahmed Patel sailed through.
This even as Yeddyurappa tried to intimidate the Congress by getting security at the Eagleton resort where the MLAs were put up, removed. Two senior Intelligence officials were changed and it was clear that gathering political intel was being given priority.
If the Congress is to be believed, in their hurry to cobble up the numbers, the BJP leaders became reckless. And fell into the Congress trap of recording every phone call the MLAs and their family members received.
In the last 24 hours, the tapes did enormous damage to the public perception about the BJP. Five audio conversations were released by the Congress, alleging Yeddyurappa, his son Vijayendra, B Sriramulu, Muralidhar Rao and Gali Janardhana Reddy had tried to bribe their legislators and their families, offering them ministries and obscene amounts of money. While the BJP dismissed the tapes as the work of a quality mimicry artiste, the fact remains that the mud stuck. It conveyed the impression that far from being a “na khaoonga, na khaane doonga” party, the BJP was happy to be in “kharidoonga” mode to shore up its government’s numbers.
By Saturday morning, the party decided there was no way it will manage the numbers. Though, the BJP had its way with its choice of the controversial KG Bopaiah as the pro-tem speaker, the decision to allow live telecast of the proceedings meant any attempt to provoke trouble could be inviting censure from the Supreme Court. It was decided, it was not worth the effort to make its government survive in Karnataka.
By 11 am, Plan B was put into motion and Yeddyurappa decided to do an Atal Behari Vajpayee. In 1996, facing certain defeat in the trust vote, then Prime Minister Vajpayee resigned after making an emotional speech. Yeddyurappa did the same, talking about his journey, positioning himself as a farmer leader.
The plan now is to go to the people, talking about the opportunistic alliance the Congress and the JD(S) have stitched together. The BJP has 2019 on the radar and it would hope to create a 2008-like sympathy for Yeddyurappa that he was once again done in by Kumaraswamy. The intention is to take away the entire Lingayat vote by attacking the Vokkaliga JD(S) and the Ahinda Congress. By next year, the BJP is sure the fissures in the JDS-Congress alliance will be all too apparent and easy to exploit.
Where does this leave Yeddyurappa? The party had made a concession for the 75-year-old despite him crossing the unofficial cut-off age. Unless the Kumaraswamy government collapses in the next few months, Yeddyurappa is only likely to be used as the leader of the Lok Sabha campaign in Karnataka and then slowly nudged into the Margdarshak Mandal.
The BJP in Karnataka was built over decades by Yeddyurappa and this two-day tenure as CM was hardly the kind of farewell the former chief minister would have liked. It has been a long journey with the BJP, barring a few short innings with the Karnataka Janatha Paksha, for this temperamental leader but in the end, Yeddyurappa fell because it was a case of so near, yet so far.
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