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Rebuff to son's Delhi ambition may have provoked Deve Gowda against Patel

M D Riti in Bangalore

After days of trying to avoid it, Karnataka Chief Minister Jayadevappa Halappa Patel has now finally agreed to testing his strength in the Janata Dal legislature party, and not on the floor of the House.

With the assembly scheduled to open on October 29, political manoeuvring and intrigue are at their height in Bangalore now.

Patel will not be in Bangalore on October 28, the day that he had originally announced for the JDLP meeting as he has to be in Delhi for a discussion on water-sharing that day.

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda now insists that he should hold it on October 26 or 27 instead.

The battle for supremacy between Deve Gowda and Patel has been brewing slowly for a while now. However, Patel's supporters are now wondering what was the catalyst that motivated Deve Gowda to make his move just now, apart from the obvious factor that an assembly election is exactly a year away.

One version has it that an astrologer advised Deve Gowda to launch his attack from Gulbarga, which is on the north-eastern border of Karnataka, as that was an auspicious direction.

Any moves to vanquish political enemies would be most fruitful if they were attempted before mid-November, the Ujjain-based astrologer is reported to have said.

Deve Gowda, who took pains to alter his office and house layout in Delhi according to Vaastu Shastra when he became prime minister, is then believed to have allowed his angry sons Revanna and Kumaraswamy, to do their worst or best.

There is a degree of credibility in this theory as Deve Gowda suddenly flitted from Delhi to Gulbarga ostensibly to console farmers affected by floods there. Ironically, the same man never went to that district last year, when there was a spate of farmer suicides because of debt and crop failures.

He also planned to arrive in Bangalore by a train that would arrive at the station by 1430 hours, because that was a reasonable hour to expect supporters, paid or genuine, to arrive.

However, the railways ruined his plans and so he had to stage another mock arrival at the station.

Dal sources, who know of Deve Gowda's strong ties with his progeny, although he likes to lambast them in public and pretend disapproval of their actions, also believe that the naming of the representative of the Karnataka government in Delhi might well have been the trigger.

For some weeks now, Deve Gowda's third son H D Kumaraswamy has been lobbying for that post, whose occupant is supposed to liase with the central government and speed up all projects and work related to Karnataka.

This representative enjoys the status and rank of a state cabinet minister.

Patel and his advisors like Dal president B L Shanker appointed Basavaraja Rayareddy to that position, reportedly citing Kumaraswamy's inadequate language skills as their reason for passing him by.

This incensed Deve Gowda, who rightly saw this as yet another move by Patel to marginalise him in Karnataka. So Deve Gowda decided that it was time to shake Patel up and prove that he is not out of the reckoning in state-level politics.

Ever since Deve Gowda lost his throne in Delhi, Patel and his men have expected trouble as the former prime minister has always been a leader who is truly regional-minded at heart. Even as prime minister, he used to ensure that he received regular intelligence reports about political intrigues and activities in Karnataka.

Deve Gowda dismissively advised Patel to 'rest and take care of his health' ostensibly because the chief minister recently had a hernia operation at the Manipal hospital in Bangalore, when Patel called him up to work out a compromise.

As the battle lines become more clearly defined, the two majority communities of Karnataka, the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats, as well as the heads of their all powerful religious mutts, are getting ready to back their respective representatives.

Deve Gowda is a devout Vokkaliga who was constantly in touch with his Adichunchungiri Mutt even when he was prime minister while Patel is a Lingayat.

Bommai, the self-designated peace-maker, is a Lingayat. Union Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde, who is enjoying the spectacle that his erstwhile party colleagues are making of themselves, is a Brahmin.

The rich and powerful Lingayat (five) and Vokkaliga (one) mutts are considered to be important vote swingers, and both camps are taking pains to get them into the act at the earliest.

EARLIER REPORTS:

Deve Gowda's 'evil designs' see Patel scurrying for god's help
Patel says he will stay and fight

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