Humble farmer is back in business, sowing seeds of dissent

It is clear that had it not been for the political umbilical cord that connects Sharad Yadav to Gowda, the presidency of the Janata Dal may not have become so contentious. There was a stage in the fortnight leading up to the Janata Dal polls when fodder scam-dogged Laloo indicated he was prepared to step down as Chief Minister of Bihar provided he could continue as JD president for six months. He was also prepared to accept anyone but Sharad Yadav as party president.

His vigorous disclaimers notwithstanding, Gowda is widely believed to have prompted the curious action of Joginder Singh opening his CBI director’s office on a Sunday afternoon to announce the chargesheeting of Laloo.

Gowda’s “destructive” mood could be put to his belief that the triumvirate of Kesri-Gujral-Laloo was responsible for his premature exit from the prime ministership. The theory that Gowda now wants to force mid-term elections in the hope that after setting alight the Janata Dal and the United Front, he will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes. (Indeed, when his government was clearly on its last legs, he had wanted to recommend the dissolution of the Lok Sabha and head a pre-polls caretaker government.)

Gowda’s apparent gameplan of returning to Race Course Road by triggering mid-term elections is seriously flawed. It envisages a scenario in which he would have the backing of the Left and the JD after the next elections and forcing the Congress to fall in line. Unlike V P Singh, who had an emotive issue of Mandal to become a vote-catcher, or Morarji Desai or even Chandra Shekhar, who had long experience of national politics, Gowda has not managed to build a personal constituency, despite his somewhat specious attempt to promote himself as a “humble farmer”. And he was in power in Delhi for too short a time — a scant 11 months — to acquire the kind of stature that might have persuaded the Left to pull its weight behind him.

And it must not be forgotten that Sharad Yadav, as the head of the JD, would himself most certainly want to emerge as a consensus candidate for the prime ministership should the faintest of opportunities present itself.

As for the Congress, it might consider backing Gowda in the future if the party were to dethrone Sitaram Kesri. There is a group in the UF which harbours illusions that this might happen if the Congress loses more ground at the next elections. They have not learnt from the mistake made by Gowda, probably his biggest, in holding on to the hope that the Congress would split and his government get stability with one section joining hands with him. That is why he was so confident in taking on Kesri. Otherwise he is not one to stand on ceremony and has gone out of his way to call on politicians of all hues, to try and win them over. Gowda did not hesitate to join hands with Sharad Yadav to outsmart Laloo and Gujral, though it was Sharad who was among the earliest to urge him to step down as PM when Kesri pulled the rug from under the feet of his government. Gowda had apparently told him at that time to go and join the Congress!

Having been Prime Minister, Gowda, who is only 64 an age considered young for politicians has now to find a different role. The Presidency is already out of his reach for five years with the election of K R Narayanan.

So also is the case with the post of the vice-president for it is Kesri who will have a decisive say in who will inhabit 6, Maulana Azad Road.

With the Bihar unit of the JD in a near vice-like grip of Laloo, the anti-Gowda faction in the party’s Karnataka unit will be left with little choice but to go with the Congress, which is regaining ground in the state.

Gowda himself cannot join hands with a Kesri-led Congress. And yet he has a base among his Vokkaliga brethren, he is thinking of contesting from rural Bangalore next time, not his beloved Hassan.

One avenue Gowda could explore in his quest for his comeback-ambitions is to join hands with the BJP, and some say that he is keeping all options and channels open even though he only talks about “strengthening the JD.”

The BJP is unlikely to make him Prime Minister, though it may want to use him. To head a front of regional parties which is backed either by the BJP or the Congress from the outside, should such a situation arise is also going to be difficult for him now. The idea of a front of regional parties supported by the BJP had been mooted by Surjit Singh Barnala in May 1996, but Parkash Singh Badal aborted it by announcing Akali Dal’s support to the BJP. The trouble is that Gowda has lost the sympathy of the southern state satraps. Beside problems such as Cauvery and Almatti, some of them feel he used the CBI to neutralise political rivals. He continues to be a factional leader instead of emerging as a bridge-builder. That is Gowda’s chief problem.