By giving the Congress a clear majority in the latest assembly polls in Karnataka and throwing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out in the process, voters in the State have sent out a message relevant to both: Governance. The people of Karnataka have every reason to believe that this was something missing over the past five years and more. Karnataka is a State, whose economy, after all, did pretty well during the first flush of liberalisation, especially from the mid-nineties till about 2005. That was a period when not only the IT and biotech industry centred around Bangalore grew, but which also saw considerable big-ticket manufacturing investments happening — for example, Jindal Vijayanagar Steel at Bellary or the Toyota-Kirloskar Motors complex next to the Bangalore-Mysore highway. Karnataka also broke new ground through initiatives such as the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, which sought to forge an active citizen-civic authority partnership, by roping in the likes of Nandan Nilekani and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw for formulating projects to make the ‘garden city’ more liveable.
But the last few years have been quite forgettable for Karnataka, with slippages in both growth and governance. The State has simply failed to capitalise on the head-start that it enjoyed in the initial liberalisation period: Bangalore’s crumbling infrastructure, extending to even garbage collection, is only a symptom of that. When combined with political instability – giving a free run for horse-traders and crony-capitalists to decide policy priorities for the government, which has to depend on their beneficence for basic survival — it hasn’t produced the best of results for the State.
The people of Karnataka have now delivered a verdict for a stable government that can focus its attentions primarily on governance. But it is a verdict specific to the State: The Congress should, by no means, interpret it as an endorsement of its Government’s performance at the Centre or as though corruption allegations don’t really matter to voters. Voters are certainly concerned about corruption, more so by non-performing governments. The BJP government in Karnataka – which had three chief ministers during its five years in power — was perceived to be both. This is quite in contrast to the way its governments in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh are viewed; one hasn’t so far heard of any major allegations of non-performance and corruption from these States. The fact that the BJP was resoundingly voted back to power in Gujarat only a few months back, but has had to eat humble pie in Karnataka only shows how much the Indian voter has evolved. Unlike the past, he/she doesn’t blindly vote out governments. The ones seen to be performing and not squandering away public resources are today given a second chance — if not more.