The politics in Karnataka, which is playing out in full public view, is hurting the image of the democratic political system of the country. For the last few days, uncertainty is hanging over Karnataka’s Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government. Fourteen MLAs of the coalition have resigned, bringing the government to a crisis. The Congress has accused the BJP of engineering the defection of the MLAs. At present, the MLAs are reportedly camping in a luxury hotel in Mumbai. They were flown out of Bengaluru in a chartered flight owned by the company belonging to the BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekar.
Even though the saffron party has distanced itself from the melee and claimed that the MLAs are resigning due to internal dispute within the ruling coalition, the signs are that the party is working behind the scene to bring down the Congress-JD (S) coalition government. In fact, the BJP is using the same tactic that it had employed to bring down the Nabam Tuki-led Congress government in Arunachal in 2015. That time, the BJP had extended covert support to the Congress MLAs to rebel against Tuki, which finally brought down the Congress government. This kind of poaching and buying of MLAs is detrimental to democracy. It will encourage money culture, thereby harming developmental activities. The BJP seems to be desperate to form the government in Karnataka. With money and power on its side, the party is resorting to every trick in the book to come back to power. In the process, the BJP is setting a wrong precedent which might come back to haunt it in future.