Differing approaches in Karnataka to polls for upper house
Unlock 1.0 is evidently not restricted to the surfeit of mundane human activity: from the institutions of rituals to malls, hotels, restaurants, etc., but also the higher calling of politics! In fact, Karnataka was first off the block—inaugurating a goodly drama over Rajya Sabha seats that threatened to overshadow all the hectic preparations for the resumption of normal life.
Four seats are now vacant, after the members honourably did their time. What could have been a staid exercise gained significance when the BJP top brass announced the names of two little-known grassroots activists, Eranna Kadadi and Ashok Gasti, one with connections to panchayat-level politics and the other a lawyer associated with the state’s OBC politics.
That too after rejecting three names sent by the state unit. The big message is restoration of primacy to those who have spent good years promoting party ideology at the ground level—a sop to the original rank and file who were feeling sidelined by the newly inducted ‘renegade’ Congress and JD(S) men who got a lion’s share of portfolios in return for propping up the BSY government. For Arunachal, where the BJP is a relatively new political player, it has fallen back on a seasoned camp-switcher, Nabam Rebia, now a loyal BJP soldier!
The Congress and JD(S) have predictably gone for veterans Mallikarjun Kharge and H D Deve Gowda, the latter as a ‘consensus’ candidate who may or may not have full consensus. How the numbers stack up in the Upper House is crucial for the BJP, which still needs to push some of its political and economic agenda ahead. Not that it has had to expend much sweat passing major constitutional amendments. The other point of conversation? All the high-value statues coming up in Bengaluru, of the venerated Kempe Gowda and, well, Vivekananda. In all this excitement, what was that little thing we seem to have almost forgotten? Oh, that was just a virus.