How long will the coalition government last?
The Congress and the JD(S) have differences over portfolio sharing. The two are unable to reach an
understanding on Cabinet berths and portfolios. The two earlier had agreed to having
H.D. Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) as the Chief Minister and G. Parameshwara of the
Congress as the Deputy Chief Minister. The Congress conceded considerable ground to the JD(S) just to prevent Bharatiya Janata Party from forming the government. The
party has twice as many members as the JD(S) in the Assembly, and hence demands
ministries such as finance, home, public works and energy. The JD(S) appears
willing to concede more berths to the Congress, but would like to have some of
the key portfolios, especially finance, for itself.
The finance portfolio in a State will prove useful during the
presentation of the budget in the Assembly to announce schemes and major policy
initiatives. The home portfolio is important for the control of the police
force, and its intelligence wing. Another sought-after portfolio allows the minister in charge control
over construction of government buildings and road works with huge outlays.
After having thwarted the BJP by offering unconditional support to the
JD(S), the Congress cannot afford to get into an unseemly scramble for
portfolios now. But neither can it allow the JD(S) to run the government as its
own show.
Right from beginning the JD(S)-Congress alliance is under a threat of
discontent and dissidence. Karnataka’s
chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has perhaps realised that it is not easy to run
JD(S)-Congress coalition government as there are so many unhappy MLAs within
his party and of course the Congress party. If in every situation of possible conflict between the coalition
partners differences are to be resolved by respective top leadership of both
parties, (that is by Congress ‘high command’, meaning Shri Rahul Gandhi, and HD
Deve Gowda, JD(S) patriarch), then running coalition government in Karnataka
will be pretty difficult.
Coalition governments have been major failures in the past and so it will
be now or in the future. There won’t be any minute level of cooperation, unity
between the coalition parties as they will fight for each other’s share in
corruption. Ultimately the public will have to suffer and bear the consequences
and will not get anything useful even though such governments last the entire
term. MLAs of coalition will loot as much as possible during the term rather
than serve the people and they can easily blame the other coalition partners
for any failures.
The best thing is let the government of an unstable coalition fall and
the natural legatee take over. The very fact that the two parties are unable to
sort out their differences even two weeks after the "deal on a post-poll
coalition even before the counting of votes drew to a close", suggests
that the cleavages are deep and the wound is festering. Clearly, Congress had a
devious plan, that of squeezing JD(S) very hard after Kumaraswamy assumed Chief
Ministership because they believed that he would concede to every hard demand
in order to stick to the CM's chair. This power sharing crisis must be resolved by the coalition parties
failing which the quality of polity will not be carrying out the state to the
next level. JD(S) will never go back in getting the key folios. Disturbed
polity and unresolved power sharing problems will sharpen BJP to play its
cards.
If Congress tries its own past games in Karnataka, the party cannot be
trusted to head a coalition government in 2019 in the unlikely event of getting
substantial numbers and therefore will give a golden chance to BJP to come back
by sheer trickery and smartness of Modi-Shah combine. Then Congress will have
no one to blame.
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