One of the first things BS Yeddyurappa may do once the treasury benches are filled up by the Congress is stage a dharna. Pray! What for? To protest that the Congress party did not thank him for its victory!

This is a joke that is being cracked by some Congressmen who recall Yeddyurappa’s days when he was sitting in the Opposition benches. If he had not staged a dharna, the joke in the press gallery is that it would pour during rain-deficit days.

But, seriously speaking, the Congress needs to actually thank him. He has helped the Congress get a decent 121 while making the BJP lose nearly 25 lakh votes in the assembly elections. In a creditable performance for an entrant to the electoral battle, Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) secured the support of a huge 30 lakh voters or 9.6 percent of the total votes polled.

He also helped the Janata Dal (S) get the number two position in the state assembly by increasing its vote tally by 13.23 lakh votes. The BJP secured 62.32 lakh votes to take the number three position. It has got 37,000 votes less than the JD(S). In terms of number of seats, both the parties have got 40 each.

Yeddyurappa’s performance at the hustings reflects his political acumen. He went out of the BJP to prove a point to its leadership that without him, the national party would be debilitated. “More than the Congress infighting, we scored a self-goal even in this election,” says a BJP leader in private.

What the BJP leader is alluding to is the kind of administration that was provided by his party during its five-year rule. Three and half years of its rule was under Yeddyurappa and the remaining under his direction or at his whims and fancies. That most of it was spent trying to just survive in power is one of the primary reasons for its electoral debacle.

The party’s performance in government was marked by corruption. But this is not the reason why the voters decided to reject it. There are many former ministers who have serious charges against them and yet have been elected because of pro-incumbency at the constituency level. It was mis-governance that ruled the roost.

Inexperience in administration is not a valid reason. In the first-ever non-Congress government that came to power in 1983, there was none with experience except chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde. Yet, its performance was remarkable enough for the people of the state to re-elect it in 1985 and a give it a majority unlike the minority status in the previous election.

“They were a focussed bunch of ministers. The government provided drinking water, made a success of dry land farming and brought in a pragmatic panchayat raj system. But, in 2008, there was no focus at the helm of affairs (meaning the chief minister),” says a former bureaucrat who has seen both the governments from close quarters.

“This bunch, barring a handful of ministers, behaved like medieval monarchs. The root cause of all their problems originated from this attitude. They did not realise that there was a system and a minister or a government has to take the system along,” says another bureaucrat.

This is not the opinion of just a few disgruntled bureaucrats, but those at various levels of the administration who confirm this attitude problem. “We are not even talking about the Reddy brothers. That is a different set of people. They were not serious about work. If you want it in one word, it was sheer dadagiri,” says a bureaucrat who held an important post.

During the administration of the last Congress government headed by SM Krishna, officials had sent back 162 files relating to de-notification of land with a flat ‘no’ as the answer. But, the strangest aspect during the last five years was that even a supreme court verdict did not prevent the chief minister from ordering de-notification. This is despite a principal secretary level official rejecting the proposal.

“For the first one year or so, he (Yeddyurappa) would listen and took pains to learn. But, over a period of time, files started going home. He began to care more for the political lackeys than serious administrative advice,” says a middle-level official.

It is natural for the bureaucracy to get intimidated by such attitude from the man on top. So bureaucrats either look the other way or fall in line, to generally avoid confrontation.

“If you are honest, generally the political class does not trouble you. But, these guys were vindictive. They did not know the difference between right and wrong. And, when it was pointed out to them that this was not done, they would look at you like you were mentally challenged. What’s the point of telling someone who is not prepared to learn?” asks a senior official.

The most classic case of apathy on the part of the BJP government was the manner in which they dealt with the victims of the 2009 floods that killed 229 people in parts of North Karnataka. Over 50,000 houses were constructed but even now half of them are yet to be allotted. The reason: the project is awaiting inauguration by the chief minister. And, since then, Karnataka has seen three chief ministers!  

“They found ways to score self-goals,” says another senior official who, like all others, did not want to be named. It is obvious that they did not realise that it is not performance alone that mattered. Performance, as one official put it, “was seen from the prism of the image. If the image is terrible, none will look at the performance. Very honestly, one wonders if they have realised it even now”.

In effect, the BJP government was in form, but not in fact. After such a performance in governance, it was natural for an anti-incumbency wave to send it packing from the “Gateway to the South”.