Vol. 10, Issue : 6
June 2018
Elections in Karnataka
The Bogus of Democracy
The competition and gamble for power among
the parties of ruling classes that assumed most
emotional and dramatic form and twists and turns
has, at least, come to an end.
The Congress and JDS combine, has emerged
victorious in this game. It has hailed it as a great
victory for justice, democracy and Constitution. It
showered praise profusely on the Supreme Court
for its timely and helpful intervention in Karnataka
crisis.
The BJP leadership has persisted in the claim
that, as a single largest party in Karnataka
Assembly, it alone had the moral right to form the
Government. It called the Congress – JDS combine
as immoral.
The people and democratic forces in our
country have witnessed the entire disgusting drama
from the day of election results in Karnataka to the
enactment of its last scene.
After the elections, the BJP was faced with only
one problem: How to hike 104 to 111? To realise
this, it must rob 7 MLAs from Congress and JDS.
There is no method that BJP leadership has not
used. It offered bulky allurements; used pressures
and threats; spread rumours; attempted to steal
the MLAs and contemplated plans to prevent some
from reaching the Assembly. The irrepressible
hunger for power and hypertension it experienced
till the last moment must be seen but cannot be
depicted in words.
The leaders of Congress – JDS combine too
cannot be said to have enjoyed peace. They had
to hide the ‘majority’ outside the reach of the enemy;
they were not 100 per cent sure that all goes well
till the end. No doubt, they moved with exceptional
fastness and plan. But the last minute changes in
the arithmetic can land them in a disastrous defeat.
The formation of a government under the Indian
Constitution and democracy had turned into a big
farce. The fact that parties competing for power
dealt the elected members as goods which can
be bought or sold and which can be kept in lockers
and taken when needed provide a glimpse of the
kind of democracy we have. The elections in our
country for legislative bodies are providing the
occasions and platforms for the parties of the ruling
classes to decide which of them can climb the seat
of power. All these parties are committed to serve
the comprador bourgeois – landlord classes and
imperialism. But they don’t spell out this fact to the
people. During the elections, they engage the
people with the talk about development and welfare,
etc. They compete in showering immediate
benefits and promises to the people. They use
caste, religion and region, etc. to rouse emotions,
prejudices as well as to divert the people from the
real issues and to reap votes. They seek to corrupt
the people by throwing money and gifts. These
parties competing for power assure the imperialists
and their compradors that their interests are served
Organ of the Central Committee of CPI(ML)