It is election time in Karnataka and some desperate parties are trying to bribe the voters with a promise of freebies.
Those who understand the needs of Governance know that the promise is economically unacceptable and morally a corrupt practice.
Let us therefore voice our views strongly against the culture of freebies by voting against it.
Naavi
The agitation of the so called farmers on farm laws and the reactions of the political parties indicate as if our country has no citizen other than the farmers. Farmers are the “Anna datas” agreed. But if there are no body to eat what farmers grow, then farmers will be worse off than what they are today. Hence there has to be a balance in policies between farmers and non farmers.
Indian farmers have been one of the most irresponsible persons who have been pampered for their vote bank power. Media has made “Farmers” the lobby which dictates the policies of the Government in all respects.
Farmers take loans for farming and misuse it on social spending such as marriages etc and end up being debtors. They donot want to get themselves educated and become productive in their activities and prefer the MSP to sustain them. Each year when there is a draught or excessive rain, they seek relief in loans and waiver most of the time.
The amount of public money that Bankers have lost on waiving off farm loans over the years is the main cause for the difficulties in the Banking sector. But year after year the demand for farm loan waiver only increases.
It is time to put an end to the exploitation of the country by the inefficient farmers and hence there is a need to actively oppose the current so called farmer’s agitation which is actually a political agitation disguised as farmer’s agitation.
It is not diplomatic for any body to speak against the farmers but there is a limit to the tolerance of the non-farmers who are consumers of farm produce and have their own right to survival.
Farming and Agriculture is as much a business as any other and ups and downs are to be expected, anticipated and countered by proper strategies. Government can be expected to help farmers in the form of providing appropriate guidance, crop insurance etc. But subsidizing for the sake of protecting the inefficiency in the farming and agricultural community is not going to be good for the country in the long run.
Let’s therefore not be shy of expressing our honest views even if it is against the farmers. In this context, the strong views expressed by Mr Kumaraswamy, former CM of Karnataka against some of the leaders who are agitating against farm laws are welcome. Other political leaders also have to call the bluff of this opposition to farm laws by some ill informed leaders.
Vijayashankar
Indians are known in the past to be self destructive. This is getting reflected in two decisions that BJP has now taken up for implementation namely, the new MV act and the Hindi imposition.
I am a staunch supporter of Mr Modi and BJP for a long long time, perhaps since I became an adult and the “Emergency” era was in place in India. However, like me many of the supporters of BJP are completely disillusioned with the statement of Mr Amit Shah on Hindi imposition (Yes, we interpret it as “imposition” unless a strong rebuttal comes from Mr Amit Shah himself).
The MV act is also a point of concern since it will be abused against ordinary citizens for minor violations such as stopping on the zebra line, parking where the Police say there is no no parking, not wearing the helmet or seat belt etc. (Stringent punishment to dangerous driving aspects including drunken driving etc is acceptable to all but the implementation by police will certainly not be limited to these aspects).
Mr Gadkari has put his personal ego at stake and is defending the high penalties saying that all legislators have supported the law. We know that the legislators are privileged people and no law will touch them and they have no qualms in passing laws unanimously when their interests are least affected or where their privileges are protected or improved.
This MV act provisions will hurt most of the middle class people and they wlil be alienated to BJP en-masse.
As if this was not enough, Mr Amit Shah has spoken in a manner that over 60% of the country are angry with his view on imposing Hindi. All the argument that English is a foreign language and should therefore be opposed is a foolish thought. English is today the global business language and if we need to be a 5 trillion economy, creating a language barrier to international transactions is not wise.
Mr Shah has proudly announced that over 60% of internal notings in his ministry is in Hindi. This indicates that more than 60% of citizens of this country cannot perhaps appreciate the notings because it is in Hindi.
What we in South India is afraid off is that the use of Hindi and removal of English will reduce the South Indians to a state of second class citizens in the country. We are today not afraid of Englishmen coming back to rule us if we adopt English as the main link language. But we are afraid that Hindi administrators will come to boss over the South Indians if we let Hindi take the sole place dislodging English.
We in South India donot trust this move as anything to do with national integration. This is a selfish move of the north Indians to usurp power from south Indians and reduce the South Indians to the “Babus only Status”and retain the power with the Hindi knowing persons whom these babus serve.
This will only re create the Pre independence culture of administration where the English rulers are replaced by Hindi speaking North Indians and the role of Indians in the British administration will be taken by the South Indians.
I would like to flag my concern that neither Modi charm nor Shah’s popularity under Article 370 abrogation will be able to reduce the hurt that this Hindi move will cause to South Indians.
Politically, this will be a huge mistake which will shut part of South India completely off the reach of BJP.
I hope Mr Shah will realize his folly and let the status quo remain. Similarly Mr Gadakri should let part of the new MV act provisions be changed so that offences that donot endanger public shall not be punished with the same penalties as are reserved for “Offences that create danger to third parties”.
Until a change is seen, people like us need to remain neutral and suspend our active support to BJP.
Naavi
Mr Tejasvi Surya brings a new hope to the voters of Bangalore South that some thing new can happen here if we elect him. But he is up against some challenges which he needs to negotiate effectively to come up victorious.
The candidature of Mr Tejasvi Surya was announced late and he has very little time to go around the constituency and establish rapport with the people. Many of the voters who were interviewed by a channel did say, “We have not even seen his face”.
The first requirement is therefore to make his face familiar to the voters of the constituency.
Apart from Mr Surya himself taking out a rally, we need volunteers to hold placards in every street corner and also go around in a beat in different streets so that no voter in the constituency complains that he does not know the face of Mr Tejasvi.
Secondly, the Bangalore south MP constituency consists of some assembly segments that are being held by opposition parties. Some of the voters feel that they are satisfied with the work done by the local MLA and there is no reason why they should not vote for the Congress/JDS candidate.
It is therefore necessary for Mr Tejasvi to adopt a twin strategy where by
a) He rides on the Modi factor and
b) At the same time develop a local focus to counter the opponents who draw their strength from being in the local politics for some time.
To some extent, the local leaders of BJP can help him in making up for his lack of local political visibility. But it appears that Mrs Tejasvini is still nursing her disappointment and finding it difficult to come out and openly support Mr Tejasvi.
Hence Mr Tejasvi needs to manage without the wholehearted support of the Anantakumar supporters. I expect that they would come around in the last few days of the campaign but it may be too late to make any difference at that time.
While BJP will pursue its “Vote for Tejasvi is a Vote for Modi to be the PM again”, principle, this may not be sufficient to win the election in Bangalore South this time.
The biggest strength of the opposition is that there is a local Government which has not yet acquired any anti incumbency tag and enjoys the Caste and Anti Modi Vote consolidation benefit.
Hence if the election is fought predominantly on local issues, it will be difficult for Mr Tejasvi to win over the assembly segments in which the local MLA may have a good reputation.
We heard some voters expressing their satisfaction of local MLAs in Hanumanta Nagar, Deepanjali Nagar etc. If we follow the trend of campaigning in Mandya and elsewhere, it is clear that this election will have a huge local issue impact which is not to the liking of BJP.
Everywhere it will be whether Deve Gowda and his family are dominating the State, whether the candidate is a Vokkaliga or Kuruba etc. These are all local issues which will have a powerful impact to neutralize the larger national issues. While the elite may discuss the national security, the Pakistani leanings of Rahul Gandhi etc, these may not be factors on which the voters will take a decision.
Build a Local Narrative
Hence Mr Tejasvi needs to build a “Local Narrative” in addition to whatever is being done now.
I feel that Mr Tejasvi has some idea in his mind but has not been able to structure, formulate and express it within the short time that is now available. In one of the recent discussion he used the term “New Bangalore” (Hosa Bengaluru). Here in lies the opportunity to bring a focus to the local issues within the national election.
When Modi introduced the “Smart City” concept, Bangalore was supposed to be the obvious choice to lead the “Smart City Campaign”. But it was unable to take the lead. During the last Yeddyurappa Government, Bangalore I had promoted a concept of Bangalore to be declared the “Cyber Security Capital” as an upgradation of the “Silicon City” or “IT Capital” etc. Had this been done, Bangalore would have been in a different orbit by now.
Of late Bangalore has even lost its place as a preferred place for setting up new projects/Startups. Other cities including Chennai or Hyderabad or Pune or Noida appear to have taken the lead.
Even the concept of “World Capital for Dispute Resolution for IT Industry” which was promoted with some of the local Government agencies did not find traction because the politicians did not have the vision. This would have pitted Bangalore against Singapore in perception of IT development.
These were all the missed opportunities for Bangalore to grow in the last 5 years of Modi Government when the local Government pursued a policy of hatred towards Mr Modi.
Now the opportunity is before Mr Tejasvi to take up the “Mission-New Bangalore” which should make Bangalore “Smarter and Better Bengaluru”.
The goal should be to use technology for a better life for citizens in Bangalore.
There is a lot of potential in
a making Bangalore Garbage Free with the introduction of schemes for converting garbage to organic manure,
b) improve the traffic management with smart traffic lights,
c) improve water supply perhaps with better effluent management system in big housing complexes,
d) make the frothing lakes look watery once again and so on.
I therefore request Mr Tejasvi to release his own short plan of action for “Mission-New Bangalore” and adopt “Bangalore South Constituency” or even a smaller part it it such as the “Basavanagudi” as a model area in which some of the concepts of the New Bangalore is implemented as a pilot project. Then this pilot project can be funded by the Central Government to be extended to the entire Bangalore City.
To start with, he has to declare his intention for this project, then if possible publish a few projects that may come to his mind immediately and then set up a Citizen Advisory Committee to take this further. All this can be done within the next two three days if he so desires so that its benefits can be taken for the current election.
I wish Mr Tejasvi would move in this direction instead of remaining complacent.
Naavi
In an interesting news that has just broken out, Face Book has removed 687 pages supposedly connected with the Congress party for “Inappropriate Behaviour” indicates that the company has run some sort of analytics and found out that the owners of these pages were running their accounts in impersonated names and all of them were connected to the IT Cell of Indian National Congress and were using the pages to canvass for Congress.
Face Book has therefore accepted that today’s AI environment can be harnessed to at least identify some types of fake news and take proactive action. I am sure that more is possible.
Recently Naavi had raised this issue in his article in India Legal Magazine.
In this article, I had argued that Social Media companies are actually not interested in removing fake news because they are commercially beneficial to them. We have seen this tendency in ISPs who support pornography and spamming since they constitute a substantial part of data exchange on the Internet. Similarly WhatsApp can do a lot to reduce the duplication of data exchange if they really want, but obviously this does not make commercial sense. What has happened now with Face Book is therefore a positive development and must be appreciated.
A couple of month’s back, in a round table in Bangalore, Naavi had pointed out to Professor Rajiv Gowda the spokesperson of Congress, (who was one of the participants,) that it was the political parties which were mainly responsible for the fake news. This stand has been vindicated in the current news break.
It must however be noted that Face Book has said that the removal of the pages is not because of the content but because of the attempt to hide identity. This issue is therefore not an issue of “Freedom of Expression” and hence Prashant Bhushan and his friends cannot run to the Supreme Court with their PILs.
Ms Divya Spandana, better known to Karnataka people as Actress Ramya who headed the Congress IT Cell may be credited with the origin of the tendency of Congress becoming a “Fake News Engine”. Mr Rahul Gandhi enjoys creating and spreading fake news and with the help of some media friends gets leverage to the fake news. Karnataka politicians are also slowly learning this art of making fake allegations on their political opponents and there are many Kannada websites and news channels who need to also take similar steps as what Face Book has taken.
It would therefore be interesting to see how this incident changes the social media usage in the next month going deeper into elections.
Naavi
With the finalization of tickets for most of the 28 Loksabha constituencies in Karnataka, the next round of discussions in every party is who got the ticket and who missed the ticket and what will be the disappointed candidate do?… Will he sulk and withdraw from campaign? or Will he rebel and actively support an opposition candidate? or will he himself stand as a rebel candidate?.
This problem is not unique to one political party and every party including BJP is facing this problem. Starting with Bangalore South constituency where Mr Tejsasvi Surya got the ticket ahead of Tejaswini Ananthakumar, it is reported that many other candidates some of them close to Mr Yeddyurappa have been denied tickets and are unhappy.
There is no doubt that candidates who for the last few weeks hoped to contest and were denied tickets would be disappointed. Since there is only one candidate who can stand for a party and there could be many claimants, disappointment to all the rejected candidates is natural and they need to spend some quiet time to get over the disappointment.
But the candidates should remember one thing. This election is not to show case whether Mr Yeddyurappa is a stronger or Eshwarappa is stronger or some body else. This election is purely whether Mr Modi has to be back as PM or Mr Rahul or Mr Chandrababu Naidu or Mamta Bannerjee or Akhilesh Yadav or Mayavati or some body else like Omar Abdulla should be the PM of India.
Unless every voter and every candidate and every party worker of BJP accepts this, there is no hope of the disssidence being suppressed or removed.
We must accept that Karnataka BJP has lacked cohesive leadership for quite some time and this has been the reason for it enabling a 37 member party becoming the ruling party in Karnataka. Had there been less dissidence, BJP would have garnered a comfortable majority in the last state election and prevented the JDS coming to power with the help of Congress.
Even before the elections, there was an opportunity for Mr Yeddyurappa to have retreated from CM’s post as a statesman and allowed some new face to be projected. he did not do so and perhaps there was reason for this since Mr Eshwarappa and R Ashok would have jumped in with their own claims. However, after failing to get the majority, there was another opportunity for Mr Yeddyurappa to assume an ideal position and retreat from CM claim and it would have given him a higher moral authority in the party than what he now enjoys. There is no doubt that he still enjoys majority support of BJP MLAs and perhaps even the workers. But it is only a strong leader who can sacrifice if such sacrifice could lead to betterment of all. Mr Yeddyurappa has not yet seem to have realized this and is still unhappy that he is not the CM of Karnataka and his recommended candidates are not being given tickets.
As regards Bangalore South, there was no logic for him to suggest only the name of Tejaswini Ananthakumar and not recommend a second choice. This was an attempt to restrict the choice of the party. Unfortunately the party has called the bluff and gone ahead with the choice of Mr Tejasvi which has its own benefits.
Just imagine how the common worker in the party would be enthused when a sincere party worker is recognized at an early age and given a ticket for this important constituency.
This is not to say that Tejaswini could not be a deserving candidate. It could have been. However Tejasvi can spend more time and energy in Delhi than Tejaswini who can still be an influential party member in the Karnataka circles. Who knows, since all leaders including Ashok, Somanna, and Yeddyurappa seem to be her supporters, she could be the next CM candidate in Karnataka or atleast an effective MLA.
I therefore urge all BJP workers to forget their disappointments in candidate selection and support the official candidate so that the tally of MPs in total increases.
They should learn from Kumaraswamy and D K Shivakumar who fancy themselves as “Pair of Bullocks” when in the past they were like the proverbial “Snake and the Mongoose”. We should appreciate that they are able to forget the past though it is for self preservation.
The same self preservation instinct should be there for BJP workers also because divided they will strengthen the Devegowda-Siddaramaiah combine.
If the local BJP leaders of Karnataka donot realize their responsibilities, the voters will still vote for Modi and throw the local leaders out into the oblivion. If in the process, BJP has to lose some seats,so be it. The party discipline is more important than one or two seats which hinges on support of selfish leaders and their followers.
I therefore urge people like Tejaswini Ananthakumar to come out and take the lead in supporting Tejasvi Surya and thereby show maturity and leadership qualities that many of the older leaders lack.
Vijayashankar
TV5, a channel in Kannada has been running an opinion collection drive among common citizens in Karnataka. Basic question that is being asked is “Whom do you want to vote in this election”? and “Why”?.
Most of the respondents have been indicating that they would vote for Mr Modi. Some students in Mangaluru when asked why not Rahul Gandhi? made a sarcastic remark “Will anybody give a diamond to a monkey?” (Mangana kaiyalli Maanikya kodtaara?).
However, when the channel contacted people in Mandya, many seem to indicate that they will vote for Kumaraswamy.
This indicates that while the city bread voters may have a proper perception that this election is for the Parliament and will determine the next Prime Minister of India, the Mandya election appears to be centered around the local issues and personalities.
The two candidates in the fray are Nikhil Kumaraswamy and Sumalatha Ambarish. Nikhil is the son of Kumaraswamy, the CM of Karnataka and is fighting on the JDS ticket. Sumalatha Ambarish is contesting as an independent supported by BJP. Officially Congress is supporting Nikhil Kumaraswamy.
When some of the voters indicate that they are voting for CM Kumaraswamy, it is clear that they donot know the importance of this election. They donot know that a vote for Nikhil of JDS is a vote to make Rahul the PM and a vote against Modi being the PM.
I want BJP to make it known to every voter in Mandya that the issue is not whether the son of CM Kumaraswamy should be supported or not but whether Rahul Gandhi has to be supported or not.
If BJP does not do this, then they will be failing in their duty.
I wish BJP to ask the followiing survey question to 100% of the voters of Mandya,
Are you aware you are voting for who has to be PM of India?
Are you aware that a Vote for JDS is a vote for Rahul Gandhi to be the PM of India?
Vijayashankar
The IT raids that has happened today in Karnataka has exposed the underbelly in the H D Kumaraswamy Government. The CM and his Congress colleagues have taken to the street level agitation attacking the IT officials and abusing them in such language which places the CM and Mr Siddaramaiah in a very low light in the eyes of the electorate.
It is clear that the CM was aware of the raids yesterday itself and hence there was no surprise as far as he was concerned. The actual raids appear to have been restricted to some officials. There is no doubt that these officials are close to Mr Kumaraswamy because otherwise they would not be sitting as officials in key positions. Ever since this Government has come to power in Karnataka, all appointments have been under the strict control of the Gowda family. Hence any raid against an official is always against a “Close aide of the family”.
Unlike the criticism of the Congress and JDS, it has to be accepted that this time of the elections is the right time for the raid because during this time, the hidden cash would come out into circulation and would be in stock. Hence I consider that if the IT department wanted to conduct a raid, this was a good time.
According to one survey, by a TV channel, 62% respondents have expressed the opinion that the raids were not politically motivated. The attempt of the HDK and DKS to convert the raids as an election issue has therefore not succeeded. It will however continue to fill the media space for a few more days.
One dangerous trend seen in the context of this raid is that Mr HDK is behaving more and more like the Mamata Bannerjee and has become belligerent. Until now he was cool and was not using abusive words like Mr Siddaramaiah to criticise Mr Modi. But after his son Mr Nikhil stood for elections in Mandya and is facing a tough battle, he seems to have become nervous and in the coming days, we can see more indiscretion being committed.
It would be better if Mr HDK does not forget that he is the CM of the state and has to behave responsibly. He cannot openly threaten IT officials as he did today since his followers may carry it further and physically carry out attacks on the IT Staff.
The Election Commission has to warn the CM to be more discreet as otherwise he would be held responsible for any law and order problem that may arise on account of his utterances.
It is unfortunate that instead of discussing issues of Corruption, National Security etc, the narrative has shifted to the IT raids. Hopefully the discussion will come back to the real issues that should drive the elections as an election to chose the Prime Minister of India.
The focus on local issues is not good for BJP and it is in their interest that the narrative is shifted to Mr Modi Vs Rahul Gandhi and issues such as “Fight against Corruption”, “National Security” etc.
Naavi
Elections in the Mandya constituency in Karnataka has become a prestige battle for the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Mr HD Kumaraswamy.
The contest is between Mr Nikhil Kumaraswamy, the son of Mr Kumaraswamy and Anitha Kumaraswamy and Mrs Sumalatha Amabarsih the widow of the ex-Congress MP and well known film actor Mr Ambaraish. The constituency was earlier held by Mr Ambarish who expired recently on 24th November 2018.
Today we are seeing that two film actors Darshan and Yash who stood in support of Mrs Sumalatha are being targetted by the Chief Minister’s supporters by stoning the house of Mr Darshan and threatening them with action by Government agencies. One of the poor Auto walas who had put up Mr Darshan’s photo on his auto has also been targeted by vandalizing his auto. These incidents clearly show what kind of culture this candidate represents.
It is irrelevant that Mr Nikhil Kumarawamy first came to limelight through a midnight drunken attack on a hotel in Bangalore on 26th October 2006. However, there is no FIR pending in this case as per the affidavit filed. People in Mandya might have forgotten this incident and it may not be an election issue today.
Mr Ambarish himself was a successful and well loved actor though his performance as a Parliamentarian did not measure upto the required standard. He rarely participated in the parliamentary activities though he appears to have done lot of social work in his constituency and enjoys respect of the masses. Mr Ambarish started his film career as a villain but in later years turned a hero. But in real life he was a respected senior film personality and was always the go to man to resolve any crisis in the Kannada film industry.
Now his widow Sumalatha is contesting in Mandya. Congress to which Ambarish belonged to, has given up this seat to JDS in its Coalition seat sharing arrangement and refused to give B Form to Sumalatha. She is therefore contesting as an independent. BJP is supporting her by not fielding its candidate. Many followers of Ambarish and many Congress workers are also supporting her.
Since this is a prestigious battle, the Chief Minister has taken it as his personal responsibility to campaign for his son and turned the constituency to a center of focus.
It is interesting to note that in a bid to confuse the voters, three other ladies with the same name as “Sumalatha” have been made to contest and also demand the same election symbols that Sumalatha Ambarish has requested.
All this shows that there will be a bitter battle in Mandya and all the dirty tricks that can be used in the election would be used. God knows what would happen if it is perceived that Mrs Sumalatha Ambarish may win. There could be other unfortunate strategies including getting the election countermanded through some means. People need to watch out.
Mr Kumaraswamy’s family is itself in the film industry for a long time and several strategies to attract attention of the public through film dialogues etc are being tried out. It is therefore fun time for the people of Mandya. But people of Mandya though living in villages, are not illiterates. They are politically savvy and are intelligent enough to know the difference between what is reality and what is drama.
It is therefore interesting to see how the people react to the campaign strategies of the Chief Minister and his son.
Whatever may be the prestige involved in the election, we urge the Chief Minister and his party not to resort to unethical political gimmicks to win the election. It could seriously erode the reputation of the Chief Minister personally and his family.
The results of this constituency would be a test of democracy and the entire country should keep watching.
Vijayashankar
Affidavit filed by Nikhil Kumaraswamy
Affidavit filed by Sumalatha Ambarish
The election process in the prestigious Bangalore South constituency has just begun with the confirmation of the BJP candidate Mr Tejasvi Surya. After the sudden demise of Mr Ananta Kumar, an expectation had been built up that Mrs Tejaswini Anantakumar would be the candidate. The media was basically responsible for building up this narrative which appears to have been supported by a few BJP leaders. When her name had not been announced in the first list, a rumour was going round that Mr Modi may contest from this constituency. But finally the choice has fallen on Mr Tejasvi Surya, an young leader, a good orator and an advocate by upbringing.
It is good to see that Mr Tejasvi visited Mrs Tejaswini’s house before filing the nomination and seek the support of Mrs Tejaswini. We presume that Mrs Tejaswini would be given another suitable opportunity to serve the party and ensure that the disappointment of local workers is suitably placated.
Tejasvi Surya is available on twitter at https://twitter.com/Tejasvi_Surya
On Facebook he is available at : https://www.facebook.com/tejasvi.suryals
Naavi
