Narendra Modi has made of the leadership shake-up in Karnataka an opportunity to take on the Congress as a whole. His line is that it was the people, not some backroom strategy, who put the pressure on for a change at the top. You can see the ripples of this drift from the Congress well beyond the state’s borders.
Modi links Karnataka shift to voter anger
“The decision to put in a new Chief Minister in Karnataka comes down to one thing: public dissatisfaction,” the PM said in Surat. In his words, the country is done with the kind of misgovernance and chaos that has been the party’s way of doing things for the better part of a decade and a half.
He drove home the point that it was this kind of resentment in Karnataka that left the party with no choice but to make a change, in a country that is now more about what you can do than what you say.
To back up his case for a tide turning, he put forward these points:
– The way things have changed in Karnataka is a reflection of how the public feels
– A record of 12 years of uncertainty under the Congress
– An electorate that wants results, not just talk
Himachal civic results bolster BJP case
Then there is the matter of the local body elections in Himachal Pradesh. Modi used them to show the Congress is on the wane. The BJP took a solid majority in three out of four municipal corporations, which he put down to voters having had enough of the way the other side has been running things.
He also brought up the stumbles in Haryana and the message sent by the people in Punjab. Put them together and you don’t have a few isolated defeats for the opposition; you have a pattern, he would have you believe.
Shivakumar era begins amid internal churn
Things have not been without their hiccups in the transition in Karnataka. After Siddaramaiah put in his resignation on May 28th, DK Shivakumar was made leader of the Legislature Party and then, on June 3rd, he and 13 others like G Parameshwara were sworn in.
But it didn’t take long for some of the unease in the new Cabinet to come to the surface. There are questions being asked over who gets what, with some calling for more room for Muslims and women in the mix.
Take Friday, when Ramalinga Reddy put in his papers, not happy with his portfolio. KH Muniyappa has had his say on the matter, and KJ George and Sathish Jarkiholi are making it known they want a bigger role. It’s an early sign of cracks in the team.
Why the Karnataka decision matters
You could say the Congress was looking to put some life back into the party after three years of the Siddaramaiah tenure. At 64, the Vokkaliga Shivakumar is the linchpin of the social fabric and the organisation in the state.
Now the party has to walk a tightrope: put in good governance and keep the house in order. If the bickering over the Cabinet drags on, it will be hard to make any headway with the new image they are trying to project.
What comes next
Expect the BJP to make hay of the situation in Karnataka and the wins in Himachal. For the Congress, the job is to show they can hold it together in Bengaluru and make the change in leadership mean something in practice.
Modi is drawing a line from the trouble in one state to the mood of the nation, with the BJP as the one to gain from any anti-incumbency. Whether he can make that stick will be up to the new government in Karnataka to prove him wrong by unifying and getting to work.
The PM is putting India’s move past the negative in contrast to the Congress’s issues. But for the average voter, the question is more straightforward: is the new Cabinet in Karnataka going to get on with the business of governing, or will we be seeing a protracted crisis?
