When he shook hands with B S Yediyurappa on February 3, 2006, H D Kumaraswamy had admitted that his party, the JD(S), and the BJP had come to power with no common ideology or philosophy.

During the last 20 months, the chief minister has lived up to his statement. All through his tenure, Kumaraswamy followed a clear agenda: survive, and also build an image as an able leader who could function independently.

Towards the fag end of his tenure, he proved how concerned he was about his position. Twenty months ago, Kumaraswamy, as an MLA, had cited petty issues as reasons to oust Congress leader N Dharam Singh from the CM’s office.

He had criticised Singh for not appointing chairpersons to boards and corporations. Interestingly, the appointments were not made even during his tenure. He had also said that the Congress “humiliated” his party workers and leaders. The situation is not much different now.

Kumaraswamy has found a host of reasons to let the BJP down. For the past several months, the CM had not been vociferous in his demands to the BJP to rein in its Bellary leaders, including G Janardhana Reddy and B Sriramulu.

Much after the dust had settled down on the Rs 150 crore mining scandal, the CM suddenly renewed it. Now, he finds it “humiliating” to him and his family. Even after Sriramulu made an attempt-to-murder charge against him, the CM — who had the right to sack the minister from the Cabinet — chose to give veiled retorts through the media.

In his 20 months’ tenure the CM had once, as a team leader, reviewed the performance of his party’s ministers. He, however, did not venture into a similar review of the BJP ministers. Initially, Kumaraswamy had jelled well with his deputy, as he had maintained a distance from his father H D Deve Gowda.

However, as the tenure progressed, Gowda started calling the shots. And it didn’t take much guesswork to realise that the son was actually the protagonist of the play scripted by his father.
Through the 20 months, Kumaraswamy has hardly interfered in the functioning of his ministers. This, however, will not fetch him accolades because as a leader, it also reflected his failure in doing a comprehensive review of the ministries.

However, the credit is due to the CM for initiating various welfare measures, including the ban on lottery and arrack. Some of these initiatives also cornered Finance Minister Yediyurappa, who was left with no choice but to make allocations for the welfare programmes that were announced prior to the budget by the CM and his father.
Kumaraswamy had also taken his detractors on with his village stays.

When criticised that he achieved nothing by staying with the poor families, the CM retorted by saying that it was his way of life and philosophy. The village stays can’t be reviewed because they are not budget-supported programmes and hence, the results are not tangible.

However, the impact of village stays in the people’s minds has been substantial. And the village camps even fetched compliments from Yediyurappa himself.

The CM came across as a proactive leader in the first few months of his tenure. Later, although he continued to tour the state, the focus was more on the party-building exercise. The extensive travelling has yielded him rich dividends, as reflected in the results of the recent urban local body elections.

The CM also got accolades for his Janata Darshan, that helped him reach out to the poor. He could offer quick solutions to the aggrieved. There, however, was no long-term solutions on offer. This simple, quick-fix model of administration, perhaps, defined Kumaraswamy’s tenure as the state’s chief minister.

Today, the CM and his father are showing inclination to shake hands with the Congress again. Gowda does not want his son to lose power and also he does not want the Left parties to blame him for allowing the saffron party to come to power in the south.

All these calculations by Gowda would only push the BJP out of the corridors of power. At the same time, his son too would get the discredit of breaching the agreement he had drawn with the BJP. Excuses for letting down the BJP will only be excuses and not valid reasons. But in politics, conspiracy and strategies work and Gowda has proved that.