On the day when results of the Karnataka elections trickled in spurts , the biggest surprise was not that of BJP getting close to simple majority, but it was the complete wiping out of Gowda family from the electoral playing fields of Karnataka.
It was only 8 months back when Deve Gowda and his son Kumarswamy were the King makers of Karnataka.For it was the father-son duo who decided the sitting puppet-incumbent of Vidhan Saudha.With Yedurappa at the helms of Karnataka now, the state will be sunk into oblivion and would be washed away from mainstream national politics.
Who ever ruled the state Kumarswamy and his followers always ensured that the state remained on the front pages and editorials of all leading national and vernacular media.For whenever they felt that state was not in news, they used to issue a single statement and the forever breaking-news-anchors of the visual media would make a beeline towards Karnataka, grabbing sound-bites from all and sundry.
When Kumarswamy found out that the coalition partner and the public were taking his alliance for granted and was not generating enough TRP the father-son duo switched their always-wavering loyalties to BJP, just like Prerna from Kasauti Zindagi Ki jumping from Anurag to Mr. Basu.
And further when they had most of the media attention and found that people were still disinterested he decided to let them spend some time in suspense, by first promising to support BJP and then withdrawing it.
The script which Kumarswamy introduced was an exact copy of what Ekta Kapoor presents on TV and Lalit Modi on the IPL ground.For most of the people he was a greedy politician , but to a large number of youth he is an ideal, for he showed the golden route to survive in todays politics that apart from having a seasoned father you also need to have brains or some Ash.
With stability apparently coming to Karnataka, we can only pray that the 2009 elections throw up a hung parliament and Messrs Gowda provide the same level of entertainment at the national level that they have been providing at the state level.
