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The inability of BJP and Congress to see the larger picture harms their own interests

Even by the standards of Indian politics, one would be hard-pressed to find a more vile, corrupt and thoroughly incompetent political leader than H.D. Deva Gowda. A Prime Minister by accident, Deva Gowda singular obsession in the last ten years has been to ensure that his sons continue to enjoy power in the state of Karnataka.

After splitting the congress party, the Gowdas formed a coalition government with the B.J.P with each party holding the chief ministership for 20 months. As expected, Gowdas are showing no inclination of keeping their part of the bargain. Amusingly enough, Deva Gowda, who had disassociated his son from his party for going against its ‘’secular” traditions has suddenly appointed himself as his son’s chief spokesperson. Despite multiple round of negotations with elder Gowda, the B.J.P seems to have finally realized that Gowda had taken them for a ride and he had no intention of giving up power. It finally decided to call his bluff.

And what does Congress do? It goes ahead and promptly offers support to the Gowdas. While it would ensure that B.J.P would be made to look foolish, what else would it achieve except giving the Gowdas 20 more months in power?

Indeed, it’s astonishing to note the inability of B.J.P and Congress to work together. While the idea of their forming a coalition may indeed be far fetched, its is their ability to harm their own interests merely to slight each other which is so remarkable and one may say worrying. After all, given B.J.P’s past experience with Mayawati and Gowdas’ power-hungry nature, it couldn’t have escaped B.J.P’s notice that a peaceful transfer of power was highly unlikely. If anything, the Congress decision to support a man who split the party is even worse: cynical, opportunist and shortsighted.

It appears that both the national parties are unaware how irrelevant they are increasingly becoming. The combined strength on both B.J.P and Congress would barely muster majority in the current Lok Sabha. With the growing strength of caste/religion based parties, it’s quite likely that they wont be able to repeat their current performance in the next elections. With regional parties having no qualms about changing fronts ( the secular debate be damned), the intransigence of the Congress and B.J.P only plays into their hands.

Here the Congress certainly deserves much more blame. With its obsession with its secular tag, it has refused to take the help of B.J.P even in passing important bills held up by the opposition of the Left. Congress’ electoral managers apparently think that merely talking to B.J.P would deprive them of their precious Muslim votebank. But if Muslims haven’t stopped voting for parties like D.M.K which have scored multiple ideological somersaults, why would they stop voting for Congress? Congress seems to be playing the game of the puritanical Left which has little interest in electoral politics outside its pocketborughs.

B.J.P, while less culpable, has hardly distinguished it self. In the Indo-US nuclear deal; it was prepared to sup with the Left merely to embarrass the U.P.A government. Even otherwise, over the last few years, its repudiated the economic agenda of the NDA government and repeatedly opposed the UPA for pursuing policies it had it advocated! Why can’t it offer unilateral support to the UPA government in matters which advances its own agenda?

The Congress and B.J.P must learn to talk and cooperate–if not for national interest then for their own good.