In the treacherous political waters of Karnataka, he is both the ship and the submarine driven by the fuel of ambition. An erstwhile friend turned foe turned friend of the BJP, the grand anti-Congress alliance engineered by JD(S) president H D Kumaraswamy has put him where he wanted—the limelight of basking in the importance of being the kingmaker who could be king. His face represents politics in the state even more than the chief minister’s. Kumaraswamy has his work cut out for him—the destruction of Congress in Karnataka. And he is ready to deploy every trick in the book to do so.
He may have inherited his father and former Prime Minister H D Devegowda’s eloquence, but he brings to the table his own brand of opportunistic politics. Unlike his father, Kumaraswamy makes no permanent friends or foes and won’t hesitate to join hands with the latter if the situation demands so.
Kumaraswamy’s realpolitik became obvious while dealing with the alliance between BJP and former chief minister and the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) boss B S Yeddyurapaa for the Legislative Council. In the Lok Sabha by polls Bangalore Rural and Mandya, the JD(S) is being supported by the other two members of the alliance. Kumaraswamy, who has taken the two elections as a matter of prestige, is leaving no stone unturned to ensure his candidates win. “I have worked out a strategy to win both seats. I am going to make it public at the right time. I know the strengths and weaknesses of the Congress party. The results of Lok Sabha bypolls will be the beginning of the end of the Congress in Karnataka,” he hopes. Recently he and Yeddyurappa were seen sharing a platform and a garland, that led to Congress leader Janardhan Poojary calling it an opportunistic “love affair.” For the once autocratic Yeddy whose sole aim was to return as Karnataka’s chief minister, ambition had to be toned down to become Karnataka’s Leader of the Oppostion—a post that is currently headed by his new found friend Kumaraswamy. It was the condition Yeddy had laid out to the BJP to return and merge the KJP but it did not find favour with the partymen. Kumaraswamy explained his relationship with Yeddy with a combination of nostalgia and political acumen; he said had Yeddyurappa adjusted with the JD(S), he would not have faced any problems and it was by digging up dirt against each other, that both got caught in legal wrangles leading to their arch enemy Siddaramaiah becoming the chief minister. In the Machiavellian politics of the state, however, nothing seems to be as it seems—alliances apart, the former minister D K Shivakumar, whose brother D K Suresh the Congress candidate from the Bangalore Rural constituency met Yeddyurappa to seek his support; a gesture that would not be lost on Kumaraswamy.
Meanwhile, the ruling Congress also has a lot riding on the outcome of these polls. The party has deployed its entire Cabinet and other leaders in all the 16 Assembly constituencies of two Lok Sabha constituencies to work towards securing a victory for its candidates. For CM Siddaramaiah, winning the bypolls would mean silencing all opposition within the party and establishing his supremacy.
Kumaraswamy, on the other hand, has made corruption at the Centre an election issue and is touring every village in both constituencies to win over voters. While Siddaramaiah likes to be identified the messiah of the backward classes and B S Yeddyurappa and Jagadish Shettar portray themselves as Lingayat leaders, Kumaraswamy prefers to be seen as a leader of all communities. Easy accessibility and a pro-farmer and pro-poor image have helped Kumaraswamy gain popularity as a people’s leader. He is lovingly called Kumaranna by his legislator colleagues and people.
Though facing charges, nothing has been proved against him.