Money rules

As Karnataka politics succumbs to money power, those who only funded parties earlier become part of the government.

in Bangalore

DESPITE the infighting in the party, defections, charges of corruption and nepotism, accusations of land grabbing, and interference by businessmen-turned-politicians in formulating government policies, Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa continues to remain at the helm of the Bharatiya Janata Party's first government in South India.

Karnataka is one of the most expensive States to get elected from. Although election expenses may vary from constituency to constituency depending on the candidates' political and financial strengths, caste considerations and local issues, the expenses to contest for a seat in the Bangalore Municipal Corporation is estimated at around Rs.1 crore. It is upwards of Rs.5 crore for an Assembly seat and Rs.30-40 crore for a parliamentary seat.

In October, when legislators were indulging in defections, forcing Yeddyurappa to seek two trust votes, some of them were allegedly offered Rs.25-30 crore to switch sides. Much of the easy money that has been available over the past decade has come from the legal and illegal gains made in iron ore mining (thanks to exports, mainly to China), from and through the real estate sector (especially in urban areas like Bangalore) which has always been a prime source of income for politicians, and from the spinoffs from Bangalore becoming a prime destination for national and multinational conglomerates.

According to the State's Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister S. Suresh Kumar, this unprecedented flow of money is a cause for worry. He said: Even earlier there were lobbyists from sectors such as construction, liquor, real estate, granite and education, and they were active in politics, but their role was limited to providing funds for a party or maybe even a candidate. Today they are inside the government and have become part of the decision-making process, even deciding who should become a Minister and where officials should be posted. This does not augur well for the political future of a State or even for development. Many of my political counterparts from other States are aghast when I tell them of the poll expenses here.

The Minister also stressed that while it was fine for a person with business interests to get elected as an individual, it is wrong when these individuals are recognised as a political class and assimilated into the party.

This seems to be Yeddyurappa's biggest problem. Although he belongs to the politically and numerically dominant Lingayat community (which constitutes over 16 per cent of the State's population), has the unprecedented backing of the community's influential religious heads, faces no real political challenge either from within the BJP or from the opposition, and enjoys the support of the BJP's top echelons, his position is shaky. Yeddyurappa's Cabinet colleagues, the billionaire iron-ore mining barons from Bellary, G. Janardhana Reddy, G. Karunakara Reddy and B. Sriramulu, have ensured that. Their presence in the government and the mixing of business interests and politics has become Yeddyurappa's, and the BJP's, bane.

Much of Yeddyurappa's troubles can be traced to May 2007 when the BJP, which had secured a mandate in the Assembly elections but was short of a majority, successfully sought to buy the allegiance of a number of opposition legislators. Operation Lotus was spearheaded by the mining barons to enhance the party's strength. The operation to woo legislators with money may have been a success, but the BJP and Yeddyurappa are paying the price for it. The Congress and the more regional Janata Dal (Secular), which is particularly afraid of being further marginalised, came out with their guns blazing.

The presence of the mining barons and their money has also prevented the party and the Chief Minister from taking independent decisions where these businessmen's interests are concerned, enforcing party discipline and conducting effective governance. Yeddyurappa, in his bid to free himself from the mining lobby, has spent a major part of his two-and-a-half-year tenure trying to generate funds. This has led to plenty of scams.

Yeddyurappa's action of allotting, out of the Chief Minister's discretionary quota, stray sites (G category) in prime areas of Bangalore to elected representatives is nothing new. His predecessors had also done so. In the past six years, 521 such sites have been allotted, with both retired and incumbent elected representatives, including Ministers, cornering 238 of them, many in violation of the rules.

Out of these, 160 allotments were made since 2004.There is little doubt that politicians of Karnataka have stretched legal boundaries in their effort to secure power and, more importantly, to stay in it. Chief Ministers Ramakrishna Hegde and H.D. Deve Gowda faced embarrassing moments owing to land scams. In 1985, Hegde was caught in the Revajeetu and NRI (non-resident Indian) land allotment scandals. The Kuldip Singh Commission, which was set up at the instance of Deve Gowda, even indicted Hegde. But no action was taken.

In 1985-86, Deve Gowda himself was embroiled in a controversy over allotting sites in Mysore to his supporters. The issue was referred to the Lokayukta and the Corps of Detectives. However, no evidence was found to indict him. In the infamous Moily tapes', M. Veerappa Moily, who later became Chief Minister, was, in 1984, accused of trying to buy the loyalty of an independent legislator in order to bring down the Hegde government. The legislator released tapes containing the recording of what purported to be Moily offering him a bribe. Moily was exonerated by a commission, which questioned the authenticity of the tapes.

In recent years, another Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy of the JD(S), was accused of grabbing land worth several crores. The names of a succession of former Chief Ministers, including Dharam Singh, S. Bangarappa and R. Gundu Rao, have also been mentioned in connection with land deals. In 1992, Bangarappa was shown the door by the Congress high command because he was seen to be corrupt.

In 1983, Hegde, after bringing out a White Paper on the Bangalore Development Authority, cancelled 1,526 regular site allotments made during the tenure of Gundu Rao, his predecessor, but upheld the allotment of 226 sites made under the discretionary quota, thereby favouring a few, with some bureaucrats even cornering two sites each. For politicians in power, an easy method to generate funds is to notify for acquisition lands that are not needed for a project. These lands are then denotified for a consideration, or even registered in the name of their kith and kin as has allegedly been done in recent months by a Minister.

Said Deve Gowda, In the past there were stray incidents of corruption, and defections for a consideration, but nothing compares with today's dirty politics.

According to R.V. Deshpande, who until recently was the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, the slide in political morality started after the 2004 Assembly elections when the Congress and the JD(S) formed a coalition government in a bid to keep the BJP out of power. We were two divergent parties who had fought each other for 30 years. There was no basic understanding or common programmes, the leaders could not gel, there was no mutual trust, and everybody was defying the Chief Minister. The coalition was a mistake.

In the 1960s and 1970s, civil contractors were the main lobby that funded politicians. Later the liquor lobby gained ground, as it was flush with funds from the sale of non-duty-paid liquor and from government contracts. It was the ruling Congress then that got these funds. By the 1980s, the ascent of the Janata Party coincided with the spurt in the price of granite, a mineral found in abundance in the State.

Many of the politicians of the erstwhile Janata Party acquired interests in the granite industry; many even owned quarries. By the 1990s, the collection of capitation fee by private professional colleges became the new cash cow, with many of the educationists not only funding political parties but also securing for themselves places in the parties and in power. Real estate, especially after the boom in urban land prices since the mid-1990s, has also funded politicians.

MINING BARONS

But these sectors pale into insignificance when compared with the role played by the mining barons. Their rags-to-riches story has coincided with the ascendance of the BJP in Karnataka and the rise of money power as the sole criterion for winning elections.

The political parties have also contributed to this menace by nominating only winning candidates. Today almost no candidate can win without money. Said senior BJP leader Sadananda Gowda, If the system has to be cleansed, parties will have to look not just at winnability but also at the morality of the candidate. In 2007, after we won the highest number of seats, we had no choice but to resort to political gimmicks. Otherwise our voters would have got disillusioned and deserted us, thinking that the BJP can never come to power and there was no point in wasting their votes on it.

Sadananda Gowda agrees that the entry of mining money has been an issue. In one way it has helped us, but it has also resulted in the morale of our cadre going down. They feel let down. The image of the party has also gone down.