With the first phase of polling in Karnataka taking place on April 26, both the Congress and the BJP-Janata Dal (Secular) combine are making a determined bid to win a majority of the state’s 28 seats. If the Congress was surging ahead in setting the agenda like in last year’s assembly polls, the BJP-JD(S) team has caught up over the last 10 days or so and is giving the grand old party a run for its votes.
Until recently, the BJP hardly seemed the robust unit it was in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. But a few public meetings jointly led by Narendra Modi and H D Deve Gowda have added vigour to the BJP-JDS campaign. Besides, the near-failure of the Congress government in properly handling a few of the recent communal incidents appears to have put the ruling party on the back foot.
The latest in this series of incidents was the murder of a Lingayat girl in Hubballi, a BJP stronghold in Dharwad constituency. The BJP is up in arms and held a state-wide bandh on April 22. The statements given by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister G Parameshwara immediately after the murder, which seemed to defend the accused, were of no help to their party. Rather, they may have caused damage to the party in parts of north Karnataka where Lingayats, the BJP’s support base, are present in substantial numbers. The BJP now looks battle-ready after it seemed to be struggling to come out of the massive rebellion it faced in nearly every other constituency after the seat allocation; the party managed to pacify the rebels in most of the seats.
However, one issue that the Congress took up early in the election—that of accusing the Centre of “injustice and step-motherly attitude” towards Karnataka—seems to have stuck. The tug of war on finances has brought to sharp focus the fallout of the worsening Centre-state ties in a federal structure. Siddaramaiah led a party demonstration in Delhi in February demanding the release of drought relief and other funds that had been inordinately delayed. He accused Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Home Minister Amit Shah of lying to the people of the state. An aggressive Siddaramaiah is leaving no opportunity to paint the BJP-ruled Centre as the ‘villain’ on the devolution of funds to Karnataka.
Sitharaman rushed to Bengaluru the other day to plead her case. While defending the Centre, she admitted that there was a delay in deciding on the state’s drought relief memorandum. She rained further misery on the state as she said the Centre had approached the Election Commission, on March 28, regarding the disbursal of funds since the Model Code of Conduct was already in force, which indicated there would be further delay in the state getting funds. Ironically, while the FM admitted to the delay on the part of the Centre, Amit Shah, while campaigning in Karnataka, put the blame on the state government as he charged there was a delay in the submission of the memorandum by the state.
The otherwise grim war of words between the Centre and the state was not without some interesting interludes. A civil society body, Jagruta Karnataka, organised a debate on devolution and invited both Sitharaman and a state government representative. Karnataka Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda represented the state but Sitharaman, who was in Bengaluru that day, did not turn up. The chair kept for her remained vacant till the end of the debate. As the injustice diatribe continued, the Congress launched an ‘Our tax, our right’ campaign directed against the Centre.
Karnataka faced an intense drought in 2023. Out of the state’s 236 taluks, the state government declared 223 as being drought-affected including 196 as severely affected ones.
As the issue of politics over drought relief was raging, Siddaramaiah hit back following Shah’s claim of a three-month delay by the state, saying that Karnataka had declared drought more than a month before the deadline of October 31; this was done on September 13 and the memorandum seeking `18,171.44 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund submitted on September 22. A central team visited the state for inspection between October 4 and 9 and submitted its report on October 20. After this, the CM met Modi and Shah seeking the disbursal of funds. When there was no response from the Centre, the CM said they resorted to the dharna in Delhi and finally sought the intervention of the Supreme Court. On April 22, the Centre told the court that the EC had okayed the disbursal and sought a week’s time for further action.
Drought relief is not the only financial dispute that Karnataka has raised. The CM also found fault with the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission that has reduced Karnataka’s share of the divisible pool of central taxes and duties from 4.7 percent to 3.6 percent. This would result in a `41,435-crore loss to the state for fiscal years 2021-2026. Another charge was that although the Finance Commission had recommended a financial grant of `5,495 crore, the Centre has declined to release it. The Union government said although this was part of the interim report, the commission’s final report did not contain it. Karnataka countered by saying there were no such things as an interim and a final report for the commission.
Another charge was that the Centre had denied Karnataka a grant of `6,000 crore recommended by the commission to improve water bodies and for a ring road around Bengaluru. The finance ministry said the recommendation was valid until March 2026 and Karnataka should not jump to conclusions.
These issues coming to the fore at election time are a boon to the Congress. They have given it a scope to attack the BJP while also hoping that raising the issue forcefully would make the 16th Finance Commission take note and calibrate the devolution formula.
B S Arun
Senior journalist based in Bengaluru
(Views are personal)