Thursday, October 14, 2010

Saffron State

So the BJP government (the first in south India) has survived for the day. The last ten days have been a roller coaster ride for the political representatives in the state. First, the group of dissidents took off to Chennai and from there hopped from one place to another and finally ended up back in Chennai. Reminds one of the Gujarat political scene where Shankar Singh Vaghela took on the BJP Chief Minister Patel by leading a group of dissidents from one resort to another. In that case the government was brought down and Vaghela become the Chief Minister. In our case, HD Kumaraswamy hoped to replicate that model, but has not succeeded, yet.
Politicians have only one Dharma- to hang on to power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Politicians claim that they want to get into power to better our lives- they end up bettering their own. Power is today the panacea for all problems. Dodging court cases to amassing wealth to fight elections and in the present scenario induce legislators with cash becomes easy with power.
Finally, we the people are witness to high drama (thanks to the electronic media) and things are back to normal (for the politicians), we move on and unfortunately forget the lessons. We keep looking to the courts to solve all our problems. The ballot is the only answer to the political farce that is played out in the name of governance. It is the only fear that politicians will take seriously. Look at where Lalu and Paswan are today after the people taught them a lesson. Can we expect the people of Karnataka to take the bull by the horn?

1 comment:

Harish Upadhya said...

I guess it has already started,
JD(S) had got 58 seats in 2004 assembly election but the people of karnataka have reduced them to 28 seats in the last assembly election,the job is not comlete yet,hopefully it will be completed in the next election and the ultimate manni na maga(son of the soil)and his party will be sent back to rest in mannu(soil).