When he was Prime Minister of India, HD Deve Gowda was accused of behaving like the Prime Minister of Karnataka, given his penchant of breathing down the neck of his successor in the chief minister’s chair, the late JH Patel. Sixteen years after he was forced out of office by an angry Sitaram Kesri, the then Congress president, Deve Gowda is fighting what his colleagues in the Janata Dal (Secular) say is the semi-final before the final one in 2014.
To those asking the question, who will be the Deve Gowda of a possible Third Front government in 2014, his supporters have a ready answer : Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda !
“Deve Gowda will play a role 100 per cent. In politics, no one is old nor does anyone forego ambition,” says one of the JD(S) senior functionaries.
Another quotes the CPI(M) leader, the late HKS Surjeet to buttress his argument. “A man gets mature in politics only when he is one hundred years old, Surjeet saab used to say,” he says.
To those outside Karnataka, it would seem the 79-year-old Deve Gowda is in semi-retirement mode, the reins of his party firmly in son HD Kumaraswamy’s control. With just three MPs, Gowda is not courted in New Delhi with the same intensity as Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati are. And his party is largely seen as an extension of his dining table, with Kumaraswamy, his wife Anita and another son HD Revanna as the faces of the JD(S).
But this assembly election in Karnataka, the Gowda parivaar is going the extra mile to ensure they matter in the new seating arrangement inside the Vidhana Soudha. On their campaign trail, they dub the Congress as a ‘national corruption’ party while the BJP ‘specialises in state corruption’.
The Gowdas know 2013 is a much better pitch than it was five years ago. At that time the voters were angry with Kumaraswamy for not honouring his word to hand over the post of chief minister after 20 months to BS Yeddyurappa, as part of the arrangement they had agreed upon. The BJP gained from the sympathy and emerged as the single largest party with 110 seats in the Assembly. The JD(S) was reduced to 28 seats, left alone to lick its wounds.
The multi-cornered contest this time offers JD(S) an opportunity to do much better. The BJP is a house divided, with its tributaries – the Karnataka Janatha Paksha (KJP) floated by Yeddyurappa and BSR Congress of B Sriramulu – threatening to eat into the traditional party vote. The Congress will be the biggest gainer of the anti-BJP sentiment but the JD(S) hopes to make itself count and will gain in several constituencies.
But it is not as if the JD(S) does not have a realistic assessment of its chances.
“We will not form a government on our own, we know that but we have a good chance of being part of the next government. We could be the second largest party with not much to separate from the party that comes in first position,” says a member of the party’s national executive, though in public he maintains that the party will come to power on its own. The party is essentially looking at a 2004-like situation where it formed a coalition with the Congress, keeping the BJP – the single largest party with 79 seats – out of power.
The biggest handicap the JD(S) faces – apart from being seen as a Private Limited Party – is the trust deficit, especially among the Muslim community. Though the leaders explain that the alliance with the BJP in 2006 happened to save the party from Congress poachers, the minorities are not convinced and suspect Kumaraswamy could do an encore, should the numbers throw up a hung Assembly on 8 May.
But even while he tours Karnataka, Deve Gowda is thinking big. Just like the BJP believed Karnataka was its gateway to the south in 2008, Deve Gowda thinks Bangalore is his stepping stone to New Delhi. The grapevine suggests that key leaders are in behind-the-scenes talks with both the Congress and the BJP, and will not shy away from a marriage of convenience with either party, in the event of a hung assembly.
Just like in Karnataka, the JD(S) feels the 2014 poll will throw up a fractured mandate too, opening the possibility of a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the Centre. In such a situation, Deve Gowda could throw his hat into the ring to have a chance of becoming the head of a Third Front.
“Gowda could present a quid pro quo deal to pitch himself for the top job with either the Congress or the BJP in return for supporting either of them in Bangalore. He is keeping his options open. He is keen to play a dominant role at the Centre,” says political analyst SA Hemantha Kumar.
Far-fetched as it may seem now, no one is dismissing the possibility outright either. After all, who thought Deve Gowda would become PM in 1996.
For long dismissed as a Z-category politician, Deve Gowda would like to surprise everyone by having the last laugh. And the last word too. Remember he had thundered in Parliament in 1997 that he will one day rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Deve Gowda, it would seem, may not be done just yet.
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