Bangalore:
It's unlikely to take long for BS Yeddyurappa to get the back-to-work blues. The Chief Minister of Karnataka is currently holidaying in Mauritius; he is scheduled to return on Monday amid a new round of corruption charges, some of the most serious that the 68-year-old has confronted.
The Karnataka Governor, HR Bhardwaj, has said he will act upon a new report that indicts Mr Yeddyurappa for allowing illegal mining in the state during his term as Chief Minister. Mr Bhardwaj said he's waiting for the report to be delivered to him. "I am the only competent authority to take action against the government", said Mr Bhardwaj, who has tried unsuccessfully in the past to have the BJP government dismissed and replaced with President's Rule.
The new report on illegal mining concludes several years of investigation by Justice Santosh Hegde, who is the Lokayukta or ombudsman of Karnataka. Mr Hegde finds that the Chief Minister's family has inappropriate links with mining firms. For one, a trust run by Mr Yeddyurappa's family in Shimoga received a Rs 10-crore donation from a mining firm. Also, the Chief Minister's son and son-in-law have sold land near the Bangalore airport to another mining company at 20 times the market price. Mr Hegde says these transactions seem to be some sort of "collateral."
Opposition parties - the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) - have demanded that Mr Yeddyurappa quit as Chief Minister.
Handling the multiple charges of corruption against Mr Yeddyurappa has been a political conundrum for the BJP for some time now. He has been accused by opposition leaders of selling public land at throwaway prices to firms run by his children and their spouses. Some of these deals were cancelled by him after they were reported in the media.
The BJP has been targeting the UPA government over corruption - an attack it hoped to ramp up in the monsoon session of parliament which starts on August 1. The Congress has stressed that since the BJP has taken no action against Mr Yeddyurappa, it has no moral ground to criticize any other party over scams. This somewhat wobbly defense, given the scale of scams that have tumbled out of the UPA's closet in the last few months - will receive some legitimacy, courtesy Mr Yedduyrappa's new controversy. Congress leader Kapil Sibal struck today while the (mining) iron is hot. "They (BJP) must take a decision according to the decision of the Lokayukta. I think that some national parties must move away from the amoral, from doublespeak."
The exact nature of the charges against Mr Yeddyurappa will be known once Mr Hegde formally hands over his report to the government - it was leaked earlier this week. Mr Hegde said "outside people" are to blame and that he is confident his phones had been tapped by people "with vested interests."
Mr Bhardwaj, as Governor, has repeatedly been accused by Mr Yeddyurappa's party of acting as an agent of the Congress and for suggesting on different occasions that Mr Yeddyurappa should exit the Chief Minister's office.
But Mr Yeddyurappa has a six-pack track record when it comes to surviving political crisis. In an interview earlier this year to NDTV, he said, "The only successor to Yeddyurappa is Yeddyurappa." Megalomania aside, it was not an empty threat - or promise. The Reddy brothers - ministers in his cabinet and mining barons from Bellary - organised a mass revolt against him. A weighty chunk of BJP MLAs backed the Reddys, but the party's central high command sided with the Chief Minister. There have been smaller camps that have spoken against him for his autocratic style. But Mr Yeddyurappa, who is from the powerful lingayat community, remains unmoved. That's largely because he has helped the BJP improve its performance in Lok Sabha, assembly and local elections.
As the BJP's first chief minister in the south, Mr Yeddyurappa has delivered. His Khatron Ka Khiladi reality show has so far survived all slumps in ratings. This could be his biggest test.