In Bangalore’s Vidhana Soudha, history is repeating itself as farce. Even as governor HR Bhardwaj has set October 14 as the fresh deadline for the Yedyurappa government to prove its majority on the floor of the house, the course of events from here on seems quite predictable.

Having lost the majority, the BJP will use every trick of the trade to avoid the floor test. The BJP has already raised the pitch against the governor whose dubious conduct has come in handy for the strategists who are sensing an opportunity for the ruling party to wash its sins in the halo of political martyrdom. Chief minister B S Yedyurappa benefited from such martyrdom in the last election. But he refuses to see the changed political scenario in the state.

Unlike the assembly elections in which Yedyurappa mobilised people’s sympathy (particularly of lingayats, his caste men), his tenure of nearly two and a half years stands discredited, marred by a series of corruptions and unprincipled politics. His own conduct has never been above board particularly with regard to his dogged insistence on the re-induction of a close woman colleague in the cabinet. The manner in which he and his party compromised on the Reddy brothers and their illegal mining has only reaffirmed the widespread belief that his regime is an apology for governance.

It is obvious that the BJP regime has lost its majority. With 18 legislators revolting against Yedyurappa, the party has practically lost its first toehold across the Vindhyas, the gateway to the South. The BJP would have done well to ponder over and reflect as to why it fell from glory to its nadir in Karnataka. However, the party suddenly discovered speaker KG Bopaiah who virtually acted as a mercenary and suspended 18 rebels without giving them even a semblance of a trial.

The manner in which the vote of confidence was conducted was reflective of the venal and subversive politics played by the BJP. Even though governor Bhardwaj’s conduct was quite dubious in pulling all the strings to bring down the government, the Yedyurappa government deserved equal blame in subverting constitutional propriety.

This case curiously seemed a replay of a similar drama in the UP assembly where Mulayam Singh Yadav tried to use speaker Dhani Ram Varma to manipulate the assembly proceedings when Mayawati was appointed chief minister for the first time. The then governor Motilal Vora had set the agenda and directed the speaker to conduct proceedings as per his directive. Varma had declared the governor’s missive as “unconstitutional” and adjourned the assembly sine die. But Mayawati countered Dhani Ram Varma’s move by propping up one Barkhu Ram Varma. The BJP then decried Dhani Ram Varma’s actions as repugnant to the basic principles of democracy. The irony of today’s situation is that through KG Bopiah, the BJP is doing a Dhani Ram Varma in Karnataka assembly.