Hegde's Lok Shakti promises to fight corruption, but...

V C Bhaskaran in Bangalore

From October 11, 1988 to February 16, 1997, Ramakrishna Hegde kept running to discover that he remains where he began -- on the launching pad! The venue for the launch of his Lok Shakti party in Bangalore on Sunday was the same as that day eight years ago. The assemblage too, an assortment of disgruntled and offsteam politicians. The shibboleths too were the same -- to fight corruption, to ensure a clean government and power to the people.

When Ramakrishna Hegde launched the Janata Dal, the common enemy was the Indian National Congress; Rajiv Gandhi and Bofors having provided the immediate provocation for the call for clean government. Hegde's new political offspring has cast the Janata Dal as its adversary.

Hedge's first demand is the dissolution of the Lok Sabha; He says he finds the Deve Gowda government an opportunistic one.

Public memory being short, Hegde obviously forgets that he was the first to rush to Delhi to form a non-BJP coalition to form the government after the 1996 Lok Sabha election. To his chagrin it was not he, but his long time rival in Karnataka politics, H D Deve Gowda, who became prime minister.

Deve Gowda was not a party to the founding of the Janata Dal and was sacked as public works minister by then then Karnataka chief minister S R Bommai for his refusal to sign an affidavit affirming a shift of allegiance from the Janata Party to the Janata Dal.

Deve Gowda was shown the door on January 17, 1989 within four months of joining the Bommai government that succeeded Hegde who had to step down as chief minister in the wake of the telephone tapping scandal.

Tapping telephones was only one of the controversies Hegde was embroiled in as chief minister,. Between January 1983 and August 1988 -- his term as chief minister -- Hegde was accused of involvement in scandals like the medical seat scandal, the Revajeetu and NRI land scandals.

The medical seat scandal involved his son Bharat who was accused in a police complaint as having taken Rs 150,000 to secure a post graduate medical seat for Sudha Satyanath, a settler from Kozhikode in Kerala. While the inquiry by a high court judge reached a crucial stage and the acussing finger pointed towards the chief minister's son, the judge, Justice Puttaswamy, suddenly walked out of the probe.

While the medical seat scandal hearings remained limited to Bangalore, thanks to some adroit media management by Hegde, the telephone tapping scandal hit the national headlines. Veerendra Patil, who became chief minister after the Congress shot back to power in 1989, claimed in the legislative assembly that the tapping was done with Hegde's knowledge and consent.

The Revajeetu scandal related to the purchase of a prime plot of land by Hegde's daughter and son-in-law. The rules were waived at the instance of the urban development minister even though the departmental secretary had made an adverse note on the file. The registration was done after office hours by a clerk seconding for the sub-registrar who was on leave. Reva and Jettu are Hegde's grandchildren.

The NRI land scandal involved property worth more than Rs 1 billion near Bangalore. The Justice Kuldip Singh commission, which held an inquiry into the scandal, recommended Hegde's prosecution. Veerendra Patil, the then chief minister, described the scandal as the greatest fraud ever committed in Karnataka. Yet no action was taken against Hegde who says he and his Lok Shakti will now undertake a crusade against corruption. Indian gullibility is legion so also the avatars of wily politicians.