The people of Karnataka have thrown up a hung verdict, much like they did in Goa. One could legitimately argue that the people of Goa did not, in fact, throw up a hung verdict. If you consider the fact that there was a pre-poll alliance between the Congress and Rohan Khaunte in the North and Churchill Alemão in the South and the fact that two of the three Goa Forward MLAs -- Jayesh Salgaocar and Vinoda Paliencar -- secured primarily anti-BJP votes. The voice of the people was pretty clear.
Yet, the BJP and Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar claimed it was a hung house and overturned the mandate of the people seeking to blame the Congress party for being ‘lethargic’ in getting its act together after the results were announced.
Going by the rule book, what the BJP and the Goa Forward did in Goa was perverse and wrong and all the more shocking considering how the BJP and its ministers were humiliated by the electorate. There’s nothing that will change that and no matter how they try to sugarcoat it.
That being said, what the Congress and the JD(S) are trying to do in Karnataka is along the same lines. Whether they ultimately succeed remains to be seen especially given that the BJP is trying to fight it out.
The Congress will no doubt, very legitimately, claim that the BJP has set the precedent and it is only fair that they try to beat them at their own game. However, in the larger scheme of things, this is a bad sign for democracy.
The ‘games’ that ensure that the single largest party is made to sit in the opposition especially when they are barely a handful of seats away from a majority -- as happened in Goa and Karnataka and Mizoram and Meghalaya -- should not be allowed to become the norm.
It shakes the people’s faith in the system, promoting political apathy and, in effect. cheating the people who have been promised one thing while votes are being solicited only for the party to completely abandon all pre-poll ideologies to gang up with their fiercest opponents.
In many other democracies, the single largest party is allowed to form and run the government even if they do not have a simple majority with the other parties abstaining from voting at the time of the floor test. The system allows for stability and is a respectful nod to the mandate of the people who have indeed chosen a single largest party.
But with the BJP setting the trend and justifying their perversity with specious arguments one can’t really blame the Congress for following suit. With this, even the pretence of morality in politics has been blown away.
