Govt. entering New Year with satisfaction

By A.Jayaram

BANGALORE, DEC. 31. The overuse of the words and phrases such as IT, biotechnology, task forces, transparency, accountability as also matinee idol, abduction, brigand or bandit in the year gone by in newspapers, radio broadcasts and telecasts only presented the credit and debit columns in the record of the S.M.Krishna Government during the first year of the new millennium or the last year of the old.

The 14-month-old S.M.Krishna Government is no doubt entering the New Year on a high note of satisfaction over having provided a stable administrations to the State. The Government faced the greatest-ever threat faced by any government in the State in the abduction of Mr.Rajkumar and three others by the Veerappan gang. All the governments in the State in the last one decade have had to face the contumacy of the criminal.

The Government carried through the year without any perceptible dissidence within its ranks. Contrast the record with that of the five years of the Congress (I) rule during 1989-1994 when the State had three Chief Ministers, open dissidence and rebellion, dharnas by ruling party MLAs on two occasions on the floor of the State Assembly and one of the Chief Ministers having later to face a CBI investigation and prosecution. Mr. Krishna himself was a dissident though he was the Deputy Chief Minister when Mr. Veerappa Moily headed the government (1992-94).

Looking back, it was a sensible decision on the part of the ruling party not to have created the post of Deputy Chief Minister. Even the previous Janata Dal administrations saw the Chief Minister (J.H.Patel) and the Deputy Chief Minister (Mr. Siddaramiah) falling apart. The latter had openly indulged in dissidence during 1998 operating from the same official residence which had been occupied by Mr. Krishna when he had held the same post.

This is not to suggest that the Government, which has a record number of believers in Vaastu Shastra from the Chief Minister, Mr. Krishna downwards, should name the bungalow on Crescent Road in Highgrounds as ``Dissidence House''. The present occupant of the bungalow is the Minister for Major Irrigation, Mr. H.K.Patil. It was Chief Ministers, K.Hanumanthaiya, R.Gundu Rao and Mr. H.D.Deve Gowda, who set the precedent of changing the names or naming official bungalows.

There is, no doubt, some subdued talk of dissidence in the Congress (I) Legislature Party. At the height of the Rajkumar abduction crisis, there was even the talk of a threat to the Chief Ministership posed by one party leader. In fact, few Congress Chief Ministers could boast of a loyal legislature party. K.C.Reddy and Hanumanthaiya in the pre-State Reorganisation period and Devaraj Urs later weathered dissidence.

It is of interest that it was the main Opposition party in the Assembly, the BJP, which faced dissidence within its ranks. It had to expel its senior leader, Mr. B.B.Shivappa, who had openly opposed the selection of Mr. Jagadish Shettar as the Leader of the Opposition. The party had to suspend two of its members, Mr. A.Manju (Arkalgud) and Dr. Bharati Shankar (T.Narasipura). The Shivappa issue continues to haunt the State unit of the BJP and at one time had almost divided the legislature party.

The Janata Dal (United), which buried its election- time alliance with the BJP, managed to increase its flock in the Assembly by one, thanks to the byelection victory from Kagwad in Belgaum District.

Though the former Prime Minister, Mr. Deve Gowda, continues to harp on his party (JD-S) being equidistant from the Congress (I) and the BJP, more than half of the party's members defected to the ruling party. So did most of the independent MLAs. It was a year of the decreasing number of those willing to oppose the Government in the Assembly.

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