In Handling Of Cauvery Water, BJP Could Boost "Secret Ally" Deve Gowda

Mysuru: For his onslaught of opprobrium against Rahul Gandhi this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose the region of Old Mysuru as the venue. As anyone with even passing knowledge of Mr Modi's SOP will confirm, nothing he delivers while in campaign mode is not premeditated.

In the last Karnataka election five years ago, the BJP, heavily impugned by rival factions, was in third place in this area. The Congress won most of the 82 seats, Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) was runner up.

A year later, however, the region proved to be as susceptible to the high-voltage charisma of Mr Modi as other parts of the country.
 But converting the 11 districts that form Old Mysuru into BJP turf is a tough ask. Which is why there is speculation that the party has an undeclared understanding with Mr Gowda that sees the BJP putting up weak or inconsequential candidates in areas where his contenders are strong.

In 2013, Mr Gowda's party won 24 of its 40 seats from south Karnataka(including old Mysuru ) where the Vokkaligas, the community to which he belongs, is the dominant force. 

In an acknowledgement of the heavy lifting it needs in southern Karnataka, the BJP has "imported" CR Patil, a parliamentarian from Gujarat assigned last year to managing Surat, the bastion of the Patels, at a time when the community was seen as having turned against the party. He delivered a blockbuster result, which burnished his credentials as a close aide of the PM and BJP chief Amit Shah.

"I am confident of reaching from zero to two digits in these 4 districts, Mysuru, Mandya, Hassan and Chamarajanagar, assigned to me," Mr Patil, who is in charge of development work in the PM's constituency of Varanasi, told NDTV. He refused to comment on whether his calculation factors in the secret understanding with Mr Gowda alleged by the opposition and bragged about by workers of both their parties.
 The pre-voting prater of the Mr Gowda and the BJP being undeclared allies could hurt the JD(S) when Karnataka votes on May 12; results will be declared on May 15. "We don't want to waste our vote on a party that is not in a position to form the government on its own and might join hands rather than take on anti-constitution and anti-minority forces,'' said a group of engineering students in Mysuru without revealing their caste or naming any party.

But there are two formidable reasons that explain why Mr Gowda is seen as central to this election. First, the forecast of opinion polls that no party will win with enough numbers to form the government. This means Mr Gowda and his JD(S) will have to be annexed by either the Congress or the BJP. Second, the rural distress that is crushing farmers in the state.

Mr Gowda, a former prime minister now 84 years old, continues to brand himself as "a son of the soil". As election season approached, he strategised, with his son HD Kumaraswamy, to appropriate the early support of farmers at a time when rural distress in Karnataka has leapt off the charts during a lengthy drought. Sugar cane cultivators account for the maximum number of farmer suicides in the state which have added upto 3,500 in the last four years.
 Karnataka is the second-driest state in the country after Rajasthan. Realising the emotive appeal of water at a time when farmers are really hurting, Mr Gowda fasted for a day in 2016 to draw attention to the decades-old and then unresolved dispute between Karnataka and neighbouring Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery river. When the Supreme Court in February delivered its verdict, according more water to Karnataka, the JD(S) was quick to claim credit.

The centre's subsequent delay in creating an autonomous board to handle the distribution of the Cauvery waters, as ordered by the top court, is a play by the BJP for the support of farmers in the Cauvery basin. It is this area that is of unrivalled importance to Mr Gowda- it is home to the four districts of Mysuru, Mandya, Hassan and Chamarajanagar that are his strongest supporters.
 In north Karnataka, in comparison, the JD(S) has no real base of its own, and has been less aggressive than the Congress and the BJP in highlighting another huge water dispute, this one between Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa over the sharing of waters of the Mahadayi river.

For nearly 1,000 days-since July 2015 - farmers in Karnataka who are desperate for more Mahadayi water have been on protest, holding rallies, sit-ins and strikes in the town of Nargund.

From a small makeshift stage near the bustling bus-station, they have been demanding water from the Mahadayi river for drinking and irrigating their fields

"In the summer months, we get drinking water just once in 15 days,'' says Yakub, a farmer whose crop has been obliterated for the last three years because of the drought.
 Last year, the Supreme Court ordered Karnataka to stop the construction of a canal for rerouting water from the river. In January, the Goa Water Resources Minister Vinod Palyekar said Karnataka was stealing water nonetheless and said it was a state full of "bastards."

Meanwhile, the BJP's chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa produced a letter from Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar expressing his willingness to reach an agreement -which farmers were quick to dismiss as a political stunt. "If the BJP government in Goa was serious, the letter would have been addressed to the Karnataka government. Obviously, it was only a cheap gimmick by the BJP to corner votes of farmers in the region. No one was fooled," says Kodihalli Chandrashekar, one of the leaders of the agitation.

"The BJP has made it clear that the problem can be resolved only if it is elected to power in Karnataka as well, along with Goa, Maharashtra and the Centre. ...our aim is not to defeat or elect any one political party but to keep putting pressure on all three till our demands are met, " says Shrinivas, the 28-year-old son of a farmer who works as an IT professional in Bengaluru.

The protesting farmers in Nargund point out that the Cauvery and Mahadayi disputes have, over time, made the political careers of many leaders across parties - none of whom have gone on to deliver the goods.