By Richie John Pais

Mangaluru, Jul 24: None from the 15 MLAs who resigned, which eventually led to the collapse of the coalition government in Karnataka, so far admitted that it was a mass decision to resign. Everyone claims that the resignation of each person was voluntary and no one has forced the particular MLA to resign. This is to tell the common man, who watched the television for the past 18 days without break, that there is no conspiracy in the resignations.

Leaders from Congress and JD(S) have alleged that this is the continuation of ‘Operation Lotus’ which BJP had undertaken a decade back to overpower Congress. But BJP presently does not even say a word about it. So far the MLAs, who have resigned, have been disowned by BJP.

BJP openly says that these disgruntled MLAs were unhappy with the coalition and resigned on their own and there is no party hand in it directly or indirectly. Even if these unhappy MLAs are taken eventually to the BJP fold, the party will say that it is a new development necessitated by the political compulsions and the party was never responsible for mass resignations. In such scenario, this operation cannot be termed as ‘Operation Lotus’, so let us call it only ‘Operation Resignations’.

There are open allegations that MLAs were offered money from Rs 10 crore to Rs 35 crore each. Lots of money was spent for their stay in seven-star hotel and security in Mumbai. Maharashtra government deployed more than 500 security personnel including from police and secret service to guard the MLAs. Lacs of rupees was also spent for their journey to Mumbai and back to Bengaluru once to meet the Speaker personally to tender resignations as per Supreme Court order. If all the allegations are true and the money involved is totalled, it amounts to anywhere between Rs 200 crore to Rs 500 crore.

When all talk about money spent for this operation, no one talks about other money spent by political parties to keep their flock together. BJP managed to keep all its MLAs together. Can anyone say it did not cost anything? And Congress and JD(S) did not spend anything to keep their 99 MLAs together? No matter how much they spent till now, surely all the political parties at least have made promises and they will have to keep those promises.

We cannot say all MLAs are corrupt, but going by the present moral standards applicable to people’s representatives, more than 80% of them, without any doubt, are corrupt and dishonest. In such situation, more than Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 crore will have to be kept aside to keep these MLAs happy in the next 4 years in different stages depending upon the political situations.

All the dishonest MLAs will not take cash. They will demand ministries, boards and corporations where they can make money. They will demand money to speak and not to speak. They will want money to vote and not to vote or to abstain or even to get admitted to hospital with a ‘sickness’. They also want money not to become a minister. In short, there will be more room for corruption from now. All parties will be involved in this. It does not matter where the money came from till now. But it has to be ‘recovered’ from the state where the resignations took place and led to the formation of new government.

There will be fight from the day new government is formed, new ministry is formed and by-polls are held. The total amount of corruption will exceed the tax imposed on liquor sales in a year. Karnataka will become a place for more corruption. All political parties will have to take blame for it as well as the people who have chosen to remain silent till now.