Opinion/V C Bhaskaran

Why the Karnataka CM decided not to attack Laloo

Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel hogged the national limelight recently when he suggested that Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav should resign after the Central Bureau of Investigation decided to seek the Bihar governor's permission to prosecute Yadav, himself a chief minister.

While the rest of the ruling coalition at the Centre were thinking up diplomatic responses to the CBI's move, Patel powdered his face in a hurry and rushed before the Doordarshan cameras to extol probity in public life. He was followed by Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the United Front convener, who first left the matter to the collective wisdom of the UF and later came out on his own to demand Yadav's resignation.

The kneejerk reaction of the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka is more interesting since the CBI had not even written to the governor for permission when these two worthies rushed to demand Yadav's ouster. In their anxiety to prove their concern for public morality, they forgot that CBI director Joginder Singh was only paying tribute to his mentor H D Deve Gowda who gave him the job of cornering inconvenient politicians and then dragging his feet over the so-called investigations.

Joginder Singh dilly dallied on Yadav until Deve Gowda was no longer prime minister. Till then Deve Gowda had counted on Yadav to bail him out, and so stayed the CBI hand against the Bihar CM. After his ouster, Deve Gowda decided to inflict the maximum damage on the very United Front which put him on top.

Within days of demanding Yadav's removal, Patel suddenly claimed that the CBI had no case against the Bihar chief minister. Addressing party workers soon after the election of the new president of the state Janata Dal, Patel passed judgment: "We all know what the correct report is and we should give credence to that. Mr Yadav is not guilty."

Patel made dark hints about a conspiracy by the press, industrial houses and the upper castes, all jostling each other to push out the poor Bihar chief minister. The same lobby, he said, was behind the ouster of Deve Gowda from the prime ministership. Note the speed with which Patel concluded that Laloo was innocent. Faster than any judge. Faster even than Bihar Governor A R Kidwai, who begged for time to study the voluminous report before he could decide if he could sanction prosecution.

What prompted Patel to swallow his own words to bail out Yadav?

Interestingly, Yadav aide Vijay Krishna reacted to Patel's hasty demand for the Bihar chief minister's ouster, saying, "Patel has brought disrepute to the party by bringing into the open his fondness for wine and women. An immoral man has no right to demand Laloo's resignation on the grounds of morality."

True, soon after taking over as Karnataka chief minister on May 31 last year, Patel had spoken of refreshment for body and soul in the evenings. He has also been accused of protecting corrupt bureaucrats. His principal secretary was once suspended by the Veerendra Patil government and faces charges from the state Lok Ayukta of amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income. Many other civil servants face similar charges. Raids conducted by the Lok Ayukta have unearthed huge quantities of currency, gold, security deposit receipts, land titles and other material that never came cheap.

Patel is already on shaky ground. The Janata Dal is unhappy with him and the new state JD president, B L Shankar, is a close associate of Deve Gowda. With dissidents on one side and Deve Gowda on the other, he needs some powerful people to stand by him. Which is why he changed his views on his party president's integrity.

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