Comments on: Karnataka’s Political Games

By: Seriously Sandeep – Karnataka Elections: The Last Chance

Seriously Sandeep – Karnataka Elections: The Last Chance — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:21:45 +0000

[...] Also known as the Family Party. Everybody in the party is effectively Master Deve Gowda’s voice. See this post for a fuller explanation. Gowda’s desertion of the BJP may not be his nemesis this time but it has done undoable damage to the “party.” However, as one of the remaining leaders who can mobilise the masses, JD(S) will fare pretty decent but nobody will be surprised if it is washed out. Enough said. [...]

By: shamgowda

shamgowda — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:29:17 +0000

Its true that UPA has better strokes than NDA because they are quite
shameless.UPA stoop’s to any level to remain in power.Be it bashing
Supreme Courts or talk of appeasement politics and secular politics at the
same time.The country’s foreign policy seems to be controlled by outsiders.
Manmohan pokes fun of Regional parties in spite of having most regional parties
as UPA’s constituent.RJD,TMC,DMK,NCP, and gets pressurised by DMK’s political
views and regionalism. TR Baalu threatened to withdraw support if the Maritime
University is not shifted to TN.CPI(M) dismisses Nandigram as internal security
problems of WB but is quick to point fingers at Gujarat. Farooq goes on to say that
J&K’s accession to India was a mistake.At no time did NDA get into such embarassing
moments.

By: saajid siddiq

saajid siddiq — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:41:46 +0000

What is going to be the future of Karnataka Govt?

By: KL

KL — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:54:00 +0000

Shell shocked by bus burning barbarism.So much hatred for TN in karnataka.

By: KL

KL — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:53:26 +0000

Karnataka is a “soft” hindutva state.It is different from other dravidian states in that it does not have an entrenched anti-hindu/anti-brahmana position.Kerala has a huge minority population.Tamils have a distict identity.Tamil is an ancient classical language with its own literary traditions.Also they have a mythology glorifying tamil culture and demonising “aryans”,brahmanas and kannadigas.Telugus are powerful and confident.

Karnataka has been the citadel of brahmana culture in the south.Kishkinda was in karnataka,according to many historians.Hanuman resided in karnataka.Asokan inscriptions are found near raichur.Chandragupta maurya retired to karnataka.Aihole,badami and pattadakkal are the cradle of southern temple architecture.The rashtrakuta empire is the cradle of the common heritage of kannada-marathi culture.Vijayanagar dynasty was founded here.

Sri shankara founded his math at sringeri.Ramanuja found refuge in melkote.madhva was born here.Brahmins are in larger numbers in coastal districts.Vokkaligas and lingayats are not found here.GSBs also took refuge from portuguese oppression.Sanketis,mulkinadu vaideeka telugu brahmanas,desastha marathi brahmanas also came to karnataka.Only 60% of the population has kannada as its mother tongue.The British brought tamil labour.tamil iyers came searching for jobs in maharaja’s time.The influx from tamil nadu continued after independence.IT and communication sectors bring engineers from all parts of india.There are many reddis in bangalore,bellary.

Indira Gandhi was elected from chikmagulur.Sonia won against sushma in bellary.BJP won 16 seats in the last loksabha elections.Puttaparthi baba and ravishankar have their ashrams.

Next only to bombay,karnataka has produced prasanna,chandra,vishy,The Wall,Jumbo,Srinathji,all great stalwarts,unassuming,now utthappa.Tamilnadu gets cauvery water.Even the kanchi periyavaa was a kannada hoysala smartha brahmana.

The KSHB are smaller in number than the srivaishnava community(owing alleigance to tamil vaishnavism) and mulkinaadu vaideeka telugu brahmanas.

Karnataka is the home of infosys.

I think JD(S) is scared that mannine magane will be wiped off,if the BJP comes to power.

In TN,mannin mainthar(sons of the soil),AP(telugu rashtra gaurava),kerala(minorities,mallus,also overpopulated) are deeply entrenched because they are either xenophobic or as in andhra,they are confident and powerful.As an indian nationalist(i am a tamil iyer)my heart bleeds for karnataka.Of course there are glaring disparities between mysore and northern karnataka.The coastal and kodagu regions have their own identity.Has the BJP spared a thought for the kannadigas?

By: Palahalli

Palahalli — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 15:54:45 +0000

The BJP always wants to appear heroic and adventurous…

Then it goes ahead and sometimes does things that look heroic and adventurous…

Then if falters miserably, because it has none that can retain a semblance of credibility to carry such burden…

It’s “nationalism” indeed fares no better when subjected to some heat.

The remarkable “intellectual/ideological” resurgence of this party, post Palampur….till this date…appears to be the history of this country in microcosm. A history of missed opportunities and fake leads.

There were always two choices for the BJP.

1. To become the Congress Party’s “B” team.

2. To tread another and very difficult/different path.

Unfortunately, the 2nd choice requires men of strength. Men who can make and stand by the most difficult choices.

It appears…that to be the Congress’ “B” team is not just more realistic…but will allow the BJP to achieve at least some of its goals.

Of course, this may be dressed up by party ideologues as being eminently “pragmatic”. For once, they will also be right.

By: Ravindra

Ravindra — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:57:01 +0000

Not just in Karnataka, if you look at the country overall, one can easily see that the UPA has had some clever political masterstrokes in comparison to the NDA (BJP). Despite a thin majority, they have gone from strength to strength (I have a feeling that if midterm polls are held today, the Congress will increase its tally), while the BJP has shown itself to be rudderles, both ideologically and in leadership terms.

Sad times for the country

By: kaangeya

kaangeya — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:51:11 +0000

Mayura,

BJP has done this every time. Remember how they tied up with Sukh Ram in HP even after he had been indicted of money laundering? And now in WB, where they were never strong to begin with, Mamata is walking out of the alliance. Of course for the sickulars, what is the small matter of Mamata sharing a platform with a fire breathing mullah demanding the expulsion of Taslima Nasrin? The gainer from this all will be the CPI(M). In WB as the Congress and Trinamul try to outdo each other in pandering to the Islamic fundamentalists, the CPI(M) will subtly send across the message to its middle class bhadralok constituency that it is the guardian of Bengali culture. The reason why the BJP has a hard time gaining a foothold in WB is that the CPI(M) outdoes it on the Hindu support angle, although it promotes a different flavour of Hinduism, the Eastern variety rather than the Gangetic plain variety. Does the BJP understand these subtleties? Maybe ABV and LKA do, but after them who?

By: Mayura

Mayura — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:24:22 +0000

BJP is a party of duffers, especially in Karnataka. The two stalwarts of Karnataka BJP viz., Ananth and Yeddy, have time and again proved their incomeptence and lack of administrative capabilities and governance. Ananth had the Civial Aviation portfolio in the NDA government, his performance was so lacklusture that he was shifted to sports and youth welfare ministry. The less said about Yeddy the better…this guy I think cannot even communicate properly in kannada/english. Added to this, the BJP in Karnataka has the habit of shooting itself in the foot. When people were fed up with the congress government BJP had a good chance of winning an absolute majority in the state election. But listening to RK Hegdes good for nothing advice, they teamed up with the most useless and discredited CMs of all J H Patel and lost the elections. Now when they had another chance to win, they teamed up with another crook Devegowda/JD instead of forcing a mid term poll in the state.

BJP can only play a jokers role in a pack of cards.

Mayura

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:01:21 +0000

IMO if BJP at all wanted power in Karnataka, it should not have used this back door entry. Even if it wanted experience, it should have been upfront and taken the first chance in this weird transfer cycle.

UP has shown it does not work. Most political parties still consider BJP as untouchable.So even if this JDS transfers power, it will soon find some fickle excuse of withdrawing support. It’s just not worth it.

Mayawatis and Gowdas will surely use BJP to remain in power; the moment they are asked to play second fiddle they will withdraw under some pretext or the other.

BJP, it seems, does not learn it’s lessons easy.

BJP should understand that for it to be nationally accepted, it’s a long haul. Short cuts won’t help. It should concentrate on getting it’s next line of leaders in shape for future battles. It should ensure that post-Advani there is no vacuum.

Reinventing is the key.