A mixed bag, administratively and politically

BANGALORE: The 38-month rule of the BJP government  in the state headed by B S Yeddyurappa is a mixed bag of both pluses and minuses — administrative and political — with the pluses getting eclipsed by the follies of the leader and the party. In short, it is an extravagant exercise in futility.BJP’s disadvantage was that it won 110 seats, three short of the majority, thus forcing Yeddyurappa to resort to ‘Operation Lotus’ to get six independents on his side. That was the first ‘political low point’ after which he compromised repeatedly in the face of revolt by Reddy brothers.Curiously, after having nearly pulled down Yeddyurappa during two rebellions, the Reddy brothers, however, turned his ardent supporters when he resigned. The first low in the administrative front — just eight days after Yeddyurappa taking oath as CM — was a farmer’s death in police firing at Haveri. The highs of Yeddyurappa in political front is the victory of the BJP in successive elections. The BJP won 19 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats, the highest in any state, won most of the by-elections to Assembly, elections to cooperative societies, milk federations, rural and urban local bodies and most prestigious Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagara Palike.  Several schemes like Bhagyalakshmi, increasing the pension to the old and the physically challenged, incentive of Rs 2 per litre of milk, farm loan at one per cent interest, organic farming, bicycles to students, skill training to youth and job melas are new highs on the administrative front. However, their shoddy implementation — due to lethargy of MLAs and also partly due to the indifferent attitude of the bureaucracy — counter-balanced the advantages to certain extent.     A great achievement of Yeddyurappa on the cultural side was the unveiling of the statue of Tamil saint-poet Thiruvalluvar in the city and, in return, getting the statue of Kannada poet Sarvajna unveiled in Chennai. It is true that no other CM was under as much duress and did undergo as much torment as Yeddyurappa. But his failure to keep his family away from day-to-day governance played to his disadvantage. Yeddyurappa repeatedly said that ‘achievements’ should speak and speaking should not be ‘achievement’, but he followed it more in breach than in practice. Rudimentary principle in a parliamentary democracy is politics of confrontation benefits the Opposition and politics of conciliation benefits the ruling party. Yeddyurappa missed its meaning. He needlessly got into fights with the Opposition, though it is true that the Congress and the JD (S) were unfair in provoking him to the maximum.