Karnataka, its crisis, controversies and elections (Letter from Bangalore)

Bangalore, Nov 22 : Karnataka is fast becoming a state that lives on crisis, controversies and elections.

Political parties are busy drawing up strategies for the Dec 18 election to fill 25 seats in the Vidhana Parishat or legislative council, the upper house of the assembly.

Including the May 2008 polls to the assembly and the April-May 2009 election to the Lok Sabha, this will be the fifth time in two-and-a-half years that political parties will spend time and money on electioneering.

The other two were by-elections to the assembly, caused either by defection of Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) legislators to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or of legislators resigning the seat after entering the Lok Sabha.

A sixth election is also on the cards, for the Greater Bangalore City Corporation. That too may be held in December.

But people will be largely spared of campaign harangue for the Dec 18 ballot.

Only members of local elected bodies - gram panchayats to zilla panchayats - and legislators and MPs form the electoral college to choose the 25 members.

The council has 75 members, of which 25 each are elected by legislative assembly members and local authorities, seven each by graduates and teachers. Eleven are nominated.

The BJP, recovering from a bitter feud between Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and his detractors, the main opposition party Congress and the third major player JD-S have begun selecting candidates.

Contestants can file nomination papers from Nov 24. The last date is Dec 1. Polling is on Dec 18 and counting Dec 21.

Of the 25 seats, 19 are held by the Congress, four by BJP and one by JD-S. The other seat is vacant.

The Congress hopes the crisis that rocked the Yeddyurappa ministry following the campaign to remove him by dissident leader Tourism Minister G. Janardhana Reddy would help it retain all the seats it held.

That would be a difficult task as the party has fared poorly in all the elections starting from May 2008. If the Congress fails to retain all the seats, the BJP would gain majority in the council also. At present both parties have 28 members each.

Even as the state heaved a sigh of relief that the BJP managed to patch up the differences in its Karnataka unit that paralysed the government for two weeks from Oct 26, there was an ugly spat in Bangalore University between the vice chancellor and newly appointed registrars.

The vice chancellor, N. Prabhu Dev, reportedly did not allow two academicians, M.G. Krishnan and M.S. Talwar, to take over as registrars on Nov 16 on the ground that they were not his nominees. Prabhu Dev denied this.

The university students resorted to demonstrations at the campus against the vice chancellor and the new registrars assumed office Nov 19. Prabhu Dev is a cardiologist and headed the premier state-government run Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology prior to his new appointment.

Another controversy is brewing.

Governor H.R. Bhardwaj, who was law minister in the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, has expressed dissatisfaction over the pace and extent of relief work in flood hit north Karnataka.

Yeddyurappa has reacted saying he would direct the chief secretary to brief the governor.

The Congress claims the chief minister had insulted the governor by his reported statement that he will take Bhardwaj also in a delegation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek larger financial assistance.

Yeddyurappa has not contradicted the statement attributed to him, though he has asserted there was no truth in the governor's assessment that relief work was shoddy.