Play it again, Karnataka

Nichani’s entry, as the daughter of former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde in a contest for the Ramanagara constituency against former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, son of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, has brought back memories of the cold war between their fathers.

The personality clashes between Hegde and Gowda through the 1980s and 1990s are believed to have ripped the heart of the Janata Party and later the Janata Dal in Karnataka and plunged it into a downward spiral that continues to the present day.

Hegde and Gowda came up the political ladder in Karnataka by taking different routes. Hegde, who fought in the freedom movement, was part of the Congress in his formative years. While Hegde always nursed ambitions of being an all-India leader, Gowda, until he became prime minister, was apparently concerned with Karnataka alone. While Gowda has been a popularly elected leader through his life, Hegde did not hold a popular base during his career. When Gowda, a civil engineering contractor, arrived on the political horizon as a Congress MLA in 1962, Hegde had already served as a minister.

The two leaders came together for the first time under the Congress (Organisation) banner following the split in the Congress in 1969. Following the Emergency, both gravitated to the Janata Party.

The essence of the Hegde-Gowda political rivalry is frequently traced to the period between 1983 and 1988 when the Janata Party, with the support of non-Congress parties, formed the first non-Congress government in Karnataka. The race for the post of chief minister in this government is believed to have sowed the first seeds of bitterness between the two leaders.

Having steered the party as the state president of the Janata Party, Deve Gowda considered himself as the rightful chief ministerial candidate following the 1983 election victory. However, with two other leaders in the fray in the form of S.R. Bommai and S. Bangarappa whose party was supporting the Janata Party-led coalition, central leaders of the Janata Party like George Fernandes decided to plump for Hegde, then a Rajya Sabha member and not an elected legislator, as the chief minister. Gowda became a minister for the first time in 1983 when he was given the public works and irrigation ministry under Hegde.

According to a book on the Deve Gowda family written by former MP, the late professor K. Venkatagiri Gowda, the elevation of Hegde created deep resentment in Gowda. “It became an eyesore for Deve Gowda who found his ambition hopelessly frustrated. This frustration sowed the seeds of discord against Hegde,” writes the former MP in the book.

While Gowda is believed to have initially nursed his frustrations in silence, three specific incidents during the Janata rule are believed to have blown away the semblance of civility between the two leaders.

The first was when Hegde chose to nominate his then family lawyer Ram Jethmalani to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. Gowda and his supporters within the Janata Party resented the choice of ‘an outsider’ and threatened to boycott voting on the day of the elections.

The second incident — the proverbial one that broke the camel’s back — came soon after when Hegde ordered a Corps of Detectives inquiry into allegations that Gowda as a minister allotted over 50 government sites to members of his family. The short-lived inquiry was ordered on the basis of allegations made by a BJP leader from Gowda’s home district of Hassan.

To this day Gowda, wears this alleged insult on his sleeve saying “I faced an inquiry when I was a minister, I can face any probe”. Hegde’s supporters, however, say their leader never hesitated from ordering probes even against his own family members.

The third incident is believed to be Hegde’s decision to nominate S.R. Bommai as his successor over Gowda in 1988 when Hegde decided to step down as chief minister accepting moral responsibility for tapping the phones of senior leaders in the state.

Hegde and Gowda were estranged between 1989 and 1994. For the 1994 elections, however, they came together again under the Janata Dal umbrella and saw it through to a clear majority to create the second non-Congress government in Karnataka.

At the time of government formation, a mob of Gowda’s supporters, nursing fears that Hegde would once again become CM, attacked Hegde outside the Vidhana Soudha and even garlanded him with slippers. Perturbed by the attack, Hegde is believed to have given way for Deve Gowda to become the chief minister of Karnataka.

When fortunes within the United Front in New Delhi favoured his elevation as prime minister of India over Hegde in 1996, Gowda is believed to have had the last laugh by allegedly getting Hegde expelled from the Janata Dal. Hegde, for his part, is said to have been deeply upset and resentful at Gowda’s ascent to the prime minister’s chair — a post he believed he was more deserving of.

When he died at the age of 77 in January 2004, Hegde was still trying to build a force that could be relevant in his state and in the country. Following his death, Hegde’s wife Shakuntala failed to get elected to the Rajya Sabha, while his son Bharat Hegde’s political career also faltered.

Nobody expects his eldest daughter Mamata Nichani to stand a chance against Gowda’s son Kumaraswamy in a carefully nurtured constituency — at least this time around.