Sonia Gandhi-Mayawati hug steals the limelight at HD Kumaraswamy's swearing-in ceremony

As opposition leaders came together in a show of strength during the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy yesterday, one moment stood out — that of BSP supremo Mayawati and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi hugging each other affectionately.
A photograph of the hug has done the rounds on social media, and on Twitter it received mixed responses. Some hailed it as an iconic image, others were not convinced.
Analysing the chemistry between the two leaders, a Twitter user said that both the leaders look "comfortable" in each other's company.

 I have not seen behan Kumari Mayawati so comfortable with any LEADER till date just look at her body language how much comfortable she is with Sonia ji holding her hand two powerful ladies salute

 The Sonia Mayawati picture of bohimen the picture of the day.Must have sent shivers down the spine of the BJP.If it can sustain and continue opposition on a strong wicket.Will give the BJP a run for its money.

Sonia-Mayawati head -bumping shows a new era of appeasement politics of dalit vote after muslim appeasement which almost all opposition are doing. Now Sonia wants a little edge over others...

In February this year, BSP’s Mayawati and JD(S) Kumaraswamy had decided to contest the assembly elections in Karnataka together, sending strong signals for the possibility of the formation of a third front.

Earlier this week, on Monday, Mayawati held a meeting with the JD(S) leader and discussed the role regional parties could play to stop the BJP from returning to power in the Lok Sabha polls next year.

This was the first time since 1996 that BSP opted for a pre-poll alliance and chose to play second fiddle to the JD(S) in Karnataka, apparently in an apparent bid to strengthen the third front to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, which political experts view as Mayawati’s agenda to revive her dwindling fortunes in her home state, where her party was decimated in last year's assembly elections.
The swearing-in ceremony was organised as a show of opposition unity after Congress extended support to JD(S) to keep BJP, which emerged as the single-largest party, out of power in Karnataka.

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Congress Gets Deputy Chief Minister, Lion's Share In Karnataka Ministries

 Karnataka will have its second chief minister in a week as Janata Dal Secular chief HD Kumaraswamy will take oath today along with his deputy, Congress' G Parameshwara. There was no word on whether there would be a second deputy for Mr Kumaraswamy - a Congress plan on which the two parties did not appear to be on the same page.

At a meeting this evening, the two parties also finalised the shape of the cabinet. Of the state's 34 ministries, 22 would go to the Congress and 12, including the post of the Chief Minister, will be with the JD(S), said Mr Parameshwara, who also heads the state unit of the Congress.

The berths will be decided after floor test, which will be held tomorrow, said KK Venugopal, one of the key Congress leaders from Karnataka.

The post of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker will be evenly divided - the Speaker will be from the Congress, his deputy will be from the Janata Dal United. The Congress has named Ramesh Kumar for the job, the JD(S) is yet to name its candidate.

The crucial meeting was held after a green signal from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, whom Mr Kumaraswamy met in Delhi on Monday. The agenda also included the matter of deputies as well as the power-sharing formula. Mr Gandhi, however, left the decisions on these issues to the state leaders, said Mr Venugopal, who was present at the meeting.

The Congress and the JD(S) had announced a last-minute tie-up during the counting of votes to keep the BJP out of power in the state. Though together, the two parties could command majority in the state assembly, the BJP, as the single largest party, was invited to form government by Governor Vajubhai Vala.

BS Yeddyurappa, who took oath on Thursday after a hectic appeal by the Congress and a midnight hearing in Supreme Court, stepped down minutes before Saturday's trust vote, which many expected him to lose.

Mr Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi will be in Bengaluru today for the oath of Mr Kumaraswamy. The ceremony will be attended by a chunk of key opposition leaders, including chief ministers of four states.

Kumaraswamy May Have Two Deputies, Will Take Oath Alone, Says Congress

 Karnataka may have not one, but two deputy chief ministers, state Congress chief G Parameshwara has said. The final call will be taken by the Central leadership, whom HD Kumaraswamy, the Chief Minister of the alliance will meet today.

The leader of the regional party Janata Dal Secular will take oath on Wednesday - alone, said senior Congress leader DK Shivakumar. The rest of his cabinet is likely to take oath only after the trust vote, which is likely to be held on Wednesday.

Under the last-minute deal between the Congress and the JD(S) on the day of vote counting, the Congress will choose a Deputy Chief Minister -- a post that's likely to be filled by Mr Parameshwara. Leaders of the JD(S), however, did not rule out the possibility of two Deputy Chief Ministers to strike a balance between the two parties.

Ahead of the meeting with Rahul and Sonia Gandhi on Monday afternoon, Mr Kumaraswamy is likely to make a detour to Tirumala, to seek blessings of Lord Balaji at the famous temple of Tirupati.

On Saturday night, in a key meeting, the Congress and the JD(S) finalised the details of power sharing. The Congress, which won 78 seats in comparison to Mr Kumaraswamy's party's 38, will get the lion's share of the ministries, although the portfolios are yet to be worked out.

BS Yeddyurappa, who took over as Chief Minister, resigned on the third day, ahead of the trust vote.
Mr Kumaraswamy told NDTV that the two parties will also draw up a Common Minimum Programme to earmark the key governance issues of the southern state. Both sides have also agreed to constitute a coalition coordination committee.

The BJP, whose government headed by BS Yeddyurappa had to resign for want of majority, ahead of the trust vote on Saturday, says the state could witness elections soon. Party lawmaker Anand Kumar said, "We would come out stronger in the elections. Only the BJP was given the mandate, but the Congress has entered into an opportunistic unholy alliance".

But BS Yeddyurappa, who took over as Chief Minister, resigned on the third day, ahead of the trust vote. The Governor had controversially given him 15 days to prove majority, triggering allegations of poaching. But the Supreme Court, in response to a petition by the Congress against the Governor's decision, had directed him to take the floor test within 24 hours.

Will BS Yeddyurappa be the Kalyan Singh or Jagdambika Pal of Karnataka

Hung assemblies do not easily produce governments. It’s a process in which the rough and the ready carry the day. Often with the help of friendly governors, and legislators willing to trade loyalties.

No matter who triumphs in the ongoing tussle in Karnataka, the developments there could have far-reaching consequences across India. Alleged gubernatorial misdemeanours have historically evoked the ire of regional parties. There is already a churning in the South and in the North.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has exited the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), making the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “step-motherly” treatment of Andhra Pradesh an issue of Telugu pride.

A Janata Dal (Secular) ally in Karnataka, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is also stitching together a partnership with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti’s (TRS) K Chandrasekhar Rao is working on a federal front in tandem with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Chief minister’s post hasn’t come easy for BJP’s Karnataka strongman BS Yeddyurappa
As a case study, the political ferment that has engulfed Karnataka has parallels in Uttar Pradesh in 1998. Kalyan Singh was the chief minister in Lucknow and IK Gujral the United Front’s prime minister in Delhi.

The Kalyan Singh government, conceived in a hung assembly, rested on support from defectors from across the anti-BJP spectrum. The turncoats escaped the anti-defection law with Kesari Nath Tripathi seemingly acting more like a BJP man than the speaker of the assembly. Rampant poaching appeared to take place when Mayawati withdrew support to Kalyan Singh after taking her six-month turn as chief minister in the March 1997 rotational power-sharing arrangement.

The efflux from the SP, the BSP and the Congress helped Kalyan prove a majority amid unprecedented violence in the House in October. He even survived Governor Romesh Bhandari’s recommendation of President’s Rule. The Gujral regime didn’t pursue the matter after the proposal didn’t pass muster with President KR Narayanan.

The jumbo 98-strong Kalyan ministry was proof of the perks of defection. Very much part of it was a breakaway Congress faction, called Loktantrik Congress and led by Naresh Aggarwal and Jagdambika Pal. It later played the Trojan horse.

Winners may be losers in Karnataka’s Catch 22 endgame

It was what a film director would have described as a perfect take. “You are a beginner,” he said, grinding his teeth in simulated anger. “These are your days to learn.” A measured pause; he then emoted. “And you are insulting a former Prime Minister, a senior-most leader?” This was Narendra Modi chastising Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President. In the course of a fierce three-way election campaign, Rahul Gandhi, prompted by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, described the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) as the B team of the Sangh Parivar. Modi tore into Rahul.

The manner in which Modi leapt to Dewe Gowda’s defence raised eyebrows. The outburst cast the JD-S as a party which had the BJP’s sympathies. If this creeping murmur reached Muslim enclaves which were once Congress vote banks, a section of the Muslim vote which would otherwise have travelled towards Gowda, would check itself. This would be ironical given that the “S” in JD-S stands for secular.

After the demolition of the Babari Masjid in 1992, the disenchanted Muslim vote, walking out of the Congress fold, was waylaid by regional parties. In Karnataka, this vote took respite under the JD-S umbrella. In these circumstances, is the Congress delusion, of being the “only” national alternative, sustainable when a pan-Indian quantity like Muslims is permanently averse to it in the states? To overtly woo Muslims, Congress leadership has been advised, risks loss of Hindu vote in direct proportion to the saffron in the air. Congress avionics are now conditioned entirely by these weather conditions. Such abject dependence on the weather will have its logic. There will be occasion when the flight will not take off at all.

Now, the post-Babari shortfall has to be made up by holding on assiduously to the Hindu vote. This requires the kind of Hindu cohesion the Congress is not geared for. If it plugs upper caste haemorrhage, the lower castes flow out into regional receptacles.

It cannot do what the BJP does: Pose the Muslim as the unstated other for Hindu consolidation. The Congress simply steers clear of the Muslim like one would steer clear of trouble. It differentiates itself from the BJP, though. It has a distinct self-image: It’s the party of “good Hindus”. It does not endorse the lumpenisation associated with “street” Hindutva or the BJP.

It is a difficult pirouette. How do you project yourself as a squeaky clean Hindu without criticising excesses in the name of the cow, love jehad, Muslim youth languishing in jails without trial. National monuments like the Red Fort will now be handed to cement magnates for repair and maintenance and so on.

All right, the BJP erects its “hard” Hindu edifice “othering” the Muslims. How does the Congress delineate its “soft” Hindu outlines? Is there clarity or is it all hazy and vague?

Modi chastised Rahul for bad-mouthing Gowda. Rahul found it so important to come clean on the subject that he agreed to give his very first newspaper interview since he became Congress President in December to Karnataka’s Deccan Herald group of newspapers.

He said he was not attacking Gowda at all; he was only inviting Gowda to explicitly declare whether he was on “that side or this side”. An epic ideological battle was on between the Congress and the BJP. Choose one.