Some TV news channels were planning nationwide celebrations, and even projecting the Karnataka verdict as the precursor to a great victory for BJP in 2019.
In elections, as in cricket, tensions mount as if the results were a matter of life and death.
The suspense that followed the election verdict in Karnataka was what one would expect during a cricket World Cup final between India and Pakistan.
In such matches, if India wins, uncontrolled euphoria sets in at once. If the team loses, there’s a wave of depression. Both the extremes are a reflection of neurosis. In individual cases, it can be treated by a psychologist. But there is no treatment for mass euphoria or mass depression.
Cue in the Modi-Shah sell-outs in the electronic media who had presumed the BJP would win 130 of Karnataka’s 224 seats, systematically driving all panel discussions to underline the importance of Amit Shah and his supposedly invincible electoral war machine.
The local and national leadership of the BJP was waxing eloquent about Shah as if he were Napoleon and, even before the votes were cast, the party’s grand victory was announced.
Some TV news channels were planning nationwide celebrations, and even projecting the Karnataka verdict as the precursor to a great victory in 2019. An anchor who enjoys Rahul Gandhi’s discomfiture more than her patron’s success asked the even more outrageously confident ‘swadeshi Machiavelli’, Ram Madhav, on the day of the results, how the party would get a majority.
He replied brazenly, “We have Amit Shah”. And this utterly shameless defence of horse-trading drew hearty laughter from the anchor as well as Madhav himself. This is the ugly face of “bhrashtachar-mukt” Bharat!
The point is, this obscene display of euphoria was widely prevalent in Modi’s caucus, amid their confidence that, whatever the numbers, the BJP would form the government in Karnataka.
On the orders of the PMO and the home department, most hotels and resorts were under strict surveillance and blocked, to corner Congress and JD(S) members.
All the arrangements of a ‘coup d’etat’ were in place, with money bags on the ready. The Enforcement Directorate and the CBI were roped in too, and the scene was reminiscent of some Latin American country from the novels of Marquez in the diabolical seventies.
One can forgive BJP spokespersons Sambit Patra and Gaurav Bhatia for going to town with pronouncements of victory before the outcome was known, but how can we justify similar antics of the so-called “objective” TV anchors masquerading as journalists?
Once the final verdict was clear, that the BJP did not have the numbers, this group’s heightened euphoria at once collapsed into deep depression. Their ‘pilot project’ for 2019 had failed.
However, the tune soon changed, as the anchors began to say B.S. Yeddyurappa was “dignified” in his exit, even comparing his “grace” to that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (remember him? he was the Prime Minister three times, in 1996, 1998 and 1999).
The nation’s “Pradhan Sevak” Narendra Modi and his own ‘Pradhan Sevak’, Amit Shah, have all but forgotten Vajpayee, as they have other veteran leaders, including L.K. Advani, who now form the ‘margdarshak mandal’.
However, Modi and Shah should not forget that there are still leaders and ‘karyakartas’ in the BJP who respect the ‘margdarshak mandal’ more than they do the two ‘sevaks’.
They may or may not know it, but there was considerable relief, even joy, privately expressed by many leaders and MPs of the BJP when the party could not form the government in Karnataka. There was also a feeling that on the day of reckoning, Yeddyurappa was left alone with his tears and family; that no senior in the party was there to either console him or re-strategise for the near future.
Most of these leaders quietly suffer their marginalisation, and even insults from the party president and the PM. Quite a few of them fear they will be denied tickets in the coming election.
These leaders did not share the initial, unwarranted euphoria, but did feel relieved that the party could not make it. They thought Shah’s arrogance would increase manifold if the game of thrones was to benefit them.
Be that as it may, thankfully, there was no euphoria in the Congress, though there was a sense of great relief and rekindled hope. Most Congressmen are so reconciled to frequent defeats that they are surprised by occasional victories. They don’t go into depression because they have not come out of it yet.
However, things may change soon as the Karnataka verdict has stoked hope among optimists in the Congress and other opposition parties that there is indeed the possibility of a front challenging the rule of ‘Moditva’.
Kumar Ketkar is a former editor and Congress member of Rajya Sabha.