Politicians always close ranks, whatever their party affiliation, when as a class, their survival is threatened. Thus the BJP, to save itself, may decide to forget and forgive the acts of commission and omission on the part of the JD(S) bigwigs.

V Shashidhar, president, Akhila Karnataka Police Mahasangha, has filed the petition. He has requested that court take an appropriate decision on the basis of the records of the legislators’ assets and liabilities and the cases pending against them. The petition is yet to be admitted. The list of the 32 bigwigs sought to be proceeded against includes BJP ministers B Sriramulu, KS Eshwarappa, Shobha Karandlaje and former minister Renukacharya. Amongst the Congress leaders who figure in the list are CP Yogeshwar, A Manju and Satish Jarkhiholi. Some JD(S) leaders also figure in the list. Notable amongst the JD(S) leaders figuring in the list are MS Subbaraju and Zameer Ahmed Khan . The petitioner has requested the court to direct the State Election Commission to furnish the particulars of assets and liabilities of the bigwigs so a full-fledged investigation can be facilitated. Additionally, the petitioner has listed out the MLAs who face charges of attempt to murder, arson, possession of weapons without licence, cheating, corruption, forgery, hurting religious sentiments, unlawful assembly and furnishing false information about their assets and liabilities. The petitioner has named the Election Commission of India as the first respondent, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as the second respondent and the chief secretary of the state as the third. The PIL has requested the court to direct the Election Commission to provide the required information to the CBI and co-operate with it to facilitate a smooth probe. It has requested that the CBI be directed to conduct an enquiry into the cases pending against the members named in the petition. The petitioner’s advocate has clarified that neither he nor his client had meant to embarrass the newly-formed government. Nor was the petition filed at the behest of any political party. The advocate’s statement rings true since the legislators the petition has named are from all the three major political parties, viz., the ruling BJP and the vanquished Congress party and JD (S).


Given this backdrop, it is expected that the BJP may tell the other two major parties that if they scratch its back, it will scratch their backs. The ‘scratching’ arrangement will ideally suit the JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda because he is in trouble with the law (the Karnataka High Court, to be precise) for mishandling the multi-crore Upper Krishna Project (UKP) works. When he was chief minister of the state, his government awarded the UKP works, involving an outlay of Rs 900 crores without calling for tenders. Things will not come to a head in this case, if Deve Gowda agrees to scratch BJP’s back. The case against the Deve Gowda government was filed by a former chief engineer H T Somashekar Reddy against the said irregularity. When Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister, his successor in Karnataka, JH Patel constituted a commission of enquiry headed by Vaijanath Patil to look into the irregularities. The commission recommended a CBI probe and the state government expectedly denied permission to CBI to conduct the probe. Undaunted, Somashekar Reddy filed a petition before the High Court of Karnataka seeking a CBI probe.

However, what lends credence to the ‘scratching theory’ is the fact that HDK who only recently said that he would launch a series of agitations to highlight the acts of commission and omission on the part of the BJP ministers who were part of the BJP-JD (S) coalition government, has suddenly fallen silent. As we have always maintained, politicians always close ranks whatever their party affiliation, when as a class, their survival is threatened. Merinews also brought to the attention of its readers how schemes meant to benefit the poorest of the poor were misused and abused by politicians for personal gain (vide, “Karnataka: H D Revanna, a law unto himself”, dated November 27, 2007). The Power Minister concerned, H.D Revanna, son of Deve Gowda and brother of former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, awarded tenders at highly inflated rates. As against the Centre-approved cost of Rs 375 crores, he awarded contracts concerning 17 projects to electrify 49 villages in various districts at a cost of Rs 641 crores, representing a 70 per cent cost overrun. The Rs 641-crore tender exceeded the Rs 613 crores approved by the Centre for electrifying all the 132 un-electrified villages in the State. Perhaps the ‘scratching arrangement’ covers this violence too! God save Karnataka!