Time to smoothen ruffled feathers
Revenge killings are back in coastal Karnataka. Last fortnight’s horrendous murders of three young men from the majority and minority communities do not bode well for the Basavaraj Bommai government, which is facing a revolt in the ranks. The spate of resignations by local leaders and office-bearers rocked the BJP leadership. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and his lieutenants promised to adopt the Yogi Adityanath ‘model’ to appease the party workers, raising the spectre of rampaging bulldozers and selective imprisonment. Higher Education Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan invoked the ‘encounter’ method to threaten the ‘other’ side, labelling them ‘terrorists’.
It came across as sabre-rattling by a rattled leadership but elicited cheers from the party rank and file, which is demanding that the BJP take the hardline and ban the People’s Front of India and its associated parties, the Campus Front of India and Student Front of India. These utterances by leaders who are seen as moderate evoked sharp protests from liberals and civil society. CM Bommai is seen as having committed two mistakes. He visited the family of Praveen Nettaru, the BJP Yuva Morcha leader, and gave a compensation of Rs 50 lakh, but skipped the families of Masood and Fazil. Two, he handed over only the Nettaru case to the NIA while the local police were probing the other two murders. This open discrimination by the state’s chief minister has led to rancour and simmering discontent in the minority community in the coastal region, already deeply riven by communal hatred. Now, in a sudden change of heart, Bommai seems to have remembered his Rajdharma and said that all the dead young men are equal in his eyes, and he would soon visit the families of Masood and Fazil.
But the damage may have been done. Communal controversies have punctuated Bommai’s year in office, and his image of a moderate leader with socialist roots has already taken a hit. Such polarisation could help the BJP in a poll year, but there is bound to be a blowback to the “five steps ahead of UP” rhetoric. CM Bommai should remember that this is the progressive state of Karnataka, not Uttar Pradesh.