JD(S)’ ideological, moral foundations stand eroded

The Janata Dal Secular (JDS) has emerged the most bruised among the three principal contenders in the just concluded elections for the 224-member Karnataka Assembly. The party could muster just 19 seats and has been consigned to political wilderness. It is a mighty fall from 37 that it garnered during the 2018 elections with around 19% of the popular votes. The party supremo and twice chief minister of the state, Mr. H.D. Kumaraswamy who sounded cockish about the party’s prospect of being the king-maker once again, has not been heard after the resounding verdict that has ushered the Congress Party To the doorstep of power.

The JDS is clearly on the terminal decline. It seems to have lived off far too long on affection that party’s patriarch H. D. Deve Gowda—and by extension his two sons and descendants down the line—once evoked among the masses in the seven districts of Old Mysore state, where Vokkaliga community is preponderant. There are definite indications that these affinities no longer bring votes for the party known for gravitating around the family. The JD(S) could get just one seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and despite best efforts by the Deve Gowda family, doughty actor Sumalatha Ambareesh wrested the Mandya seat from the party. Former prime minister Mr Deve Gowda lost the election for Tumkur Lok Sabha seat at the hands of a lesser known BJP politician.

Against the Congress’ 43% and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s 36% votes, the Janata Dal Secular could barely get 13% popular votes. In the traditional bastion of the party viz, Mysuru region, the JD(S)’ seat count declined from 24 in 2018 to just 13 in the recent elections, conceding most seats to the Congress which also carved out seats from the BJP’s previous tally. The JDS secured merely six more seats from elsewhere in the state to reach the tally of 19.

In an election fought on sharp ideological lines, as could be witnessed this time, the JD(S) had little to offer. The lavish life style of the descendants of the party patriarch most often bear no relevance with the humble mannina maga image of Mr. Deve Gowda. The family members enjoying ‘loaves and fishes’ of office and vying for political positions seem too distant from the farms and farmers’ causes the party has been espousing by way of its ideology. The fracas that broke out over nomination for Hassan seat have also provided a foretaste of intra-family intrigues that are awaiting to tear the party asunder if the banyan shadow of the patriarch were to shift away.

Political parties cannot and do not survive in ideological vacuum. Somewhere the people look for the moral and ideological foundation of the politics pursued by them, howsoever that ideology might get chipped or eroded at the altar of power or in the electoral exercise. The JD(S) has had nothing to offer by way of principles. ‘Secular’ in its nomenclature took the backseat when it came to allying with the BJP in 2006-2007 and Kumaraswamy felt no moral qualms in backtracking on his promise of supporting Mr. B.S. Yeddiyurappa for the other half of the tenure. Such hypocrisies and betrayals certainly count when it comes to judging parties and the character.