Bangalore, May 15: Even as the countdown for Lok Sabha poll results has started with almost all exit polls indicating the likelihood of a hung parliament and confusion on whether Congress-led UPA or BJP-led NDA or even a third or fourth front will get to rule the country, ominous signs of trouble have come to the fore in BJP-ruled Karnataka.

The seriousness of the situation can be gauged from the fact that M P Renukacharya, a ruling party MLA and one who is considered quite close to chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, took the lead in organising a meeting of BJP MLAs to discuss their grievances. More importantly, as many as 10 MLAs took part in the meeting. And Renukacharya had no regrets for taking the initiative in convening the meeting even before the announcement of election results, and sought to justify his action before the media inside Vidhana Soudha, the state government’s seat of power, by pointing out that second or third term MLAs had every right to demand positions of power in the government.

"If newcomers, who joined the party on the eve of elections, can enjoy plum positions, what is wrong if loyal partymen seek their rightful share?,’’ Renukacharya bluntly asked even while swearing his loyalty to Yeddyurappa. But things might change just as quickly and more BJP legislators, including several fence-sitters, might jump ship and queer the pitch.

This, however, is just the beginning. With Yeddyurappa and state BJP president D V Sadananda Gowda going on record that the party would do better than its performance in 2004 when it won 18 of the 28 lok sabha seats in the state and would certainly bag upwards of 20 or even 24 seats if not make a clean sweep of all the seats, BJP would be under tremendous pressure to at least retain its position. Despite the assertions by the chief minister and others that the lok sabha polls could not be considered as a referendum on the performance of the government, which is slated to complete its first year in office later this month, Yeddyurappa would lose his credibility and even legitimacy if he cannot ensure BJP’s victory in at least 18 seats.

If the ruling party suffers an adverse verdict, the murmurs of dissent and discontent that have already begun to surface could well snowball into a major political crisis and eventually lead to destabilizing the Yeddyurappa regime. But, if BJP is able to win upwards of 20 or even score 24 seats, Yeddyurappa can certainly claim the moral high ground and emerge stronger with nobody to challenge him. His detractors and potential enemies will have to eat crow. But, that, remains a big if.

That all was not hunky-dory within BJP in the state was known much before the lok sabha polls. The saffron party’s rank and file had not taken kindly to the initiatives and overtures made by the chief minister and his loyal state party chief and others in unleashing ``Operation Lotus’’ to wean Congress and JD(S) MLAs and prevail upon them to renounce their assembly seats and contest again on BJP symbol as part of the overall strategy to gain a clear majority for the ruling party in the state assembly by offering cabinet ministership and other positions of power and even attractive monetary allurements, if one were to go by speculation in political circles, and thereby compel loyal saffron activists to make sacrifices.  The continuation of Operation Lotus even after BJP secured a clear majority of 115 on its own in the 224-member assembly, and the stark reality of offering party tickets to ``defectors’’ even during the parliamentary polls further aggravated the situation.

The ruling party’s decision at the instance of Yeddyurappa-Sadananda Gowda in offering party tickets to chief minister’s son B Y Raghavendra in Shimoga or health minister B Sriramulu’s sister Shantha in Bellary, public works minister C M Udasi’s son  Shivakumar in Haveri, prison and horticulture minister Umesh V Katti’s brother Ramesh from Chikkodi in sharp contrast to BJP’s public criticism of Congress and JD(S) for practicing `dynasty politics’ and for encouraging kith and kin even while claiming to be a party with a difference had antagonized not just partymen but even senior leaders.

BJP national general secretary Ananth Kumar and even Sadananda Gowda are said to have objected to giving the Shimoga party ticket to Yeddyurappa’s son, and many other known detractors of the chief minister like Basavanagouda Patil Yatnal and B B Shivappa had publicly criticised the move. Of course, eventually, everybody fell in line. Shivappa, incidentally, strongly opposed the selection of the candidate for Hassan when former Congress leader K H Hanume Gowda was chosen. The denial of party ticket to senior BJP leader like S Mallikarjunaiah, who had toiled in the party since its Bharatiya Jan Sangh days, from Tumkur and choice of former Congress MP, G S Basavaraju, or the selection of a staunch BJP critic like L R Shivarame Gowda from Mandya and even the manner in which former Congress minister D B Chandre Gowda was chosen for Bangalore north seat were some of the decisions that had caused tremendous heartburn within the party’s rank and file.

Now that the D-day of counting is at hand, and almost all exit or opinion polls suggest that BJP is unlikely to make a clean sweep of the lok sabha seats in the state and may have to be content with around 18 seats which is its 2004 figure, give and take a couple of seats, and that the Congress party might maintain or even exceed its 2004 tally of 8 seats and JD(S) could end up with 3 to 5 seats as compared to the mere 2 seats held by it in 2004, Yeddyurappa seems to be heading for trouble. The murmurs of dissent and discontent that are now being heard in whispers threaten to become loud groans and torrents, which eventually might lead into a campaign for change of guard in the state.

The Bellary mining lords – read the Reddy brothers G Janardhana Reddy, G Karunakar Reddy and their close confidant B Sriramulu – who had virtually bankrolled the Operation Lotus and most of the lok sabha electoral campaign of BJP, at least in the north Karnataka region, are believed to be not happy with Yeddyurappa. Even before the elections, Janardhana Reddy had publicly hinted that backward class leader Sriramulu could don the CM’s mantle before long.

If BJP is unable to win 20 of the 28 seats or at least maintain its 2004 tally of 18, and NDA fails to grab power in Delhi, and if UPA somehow is able to return to power with the support of third front parties and JD(S) with its 4 or 5 seats manages to become part of the ruling establishment at Centre, the situation is likely to become  more dicey for Yeddyurappa. JD(S) can certainly be expected to extract its pound of flesh and teach Yeddyurappa and company a lesson or two in tackling opposition with the willing assistance of Congressmen, who had suffered the most under Operation Lotus.

With Yeddyurappa dropping enough hints at reconstituting his ministry, which necessarily means that he has axe a few to accommodate fresh faces, including the new entrants from Congress or JD(S), as also reshuffle the portfolios, the exercise when undertaken could spark off further problems and even create more dissidents. There are strong rumours of assembly speaker Jagadish Shettar, who is a more acceptable Lingayat leader and hails from the Lingayat-dominated Hubli-Dharwad region, being tipped to join the ministry. Whether Shettar himself becomes a rallying point for anti-Yeddyurappa forces within the ruling party is another big question.

Whether former deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah, who forced the Congress high command into promising him to be given the opposition leader’s post in the assembly replacing Mallikarjuna Kharge, succeeds in his cherished ambition is doubtful even if Kharge is elected from Gulbarga lok sabha constituency. In fact, rumours are afloat in political circles that a section of BJP leaders, who tried their best to woo Siddaramaiah or at least encourage him to form a separate party or revive the almost defunct All India Progressive Janata Dal (AIPJD)  and align with BJP like Ramakrishna Hegde with his Lok Shakti  in the run-up to the elections, have started pressurizing the Kuruba leader to quit Congress party in the post-election scenario with the promise to support him for the chief ministership. Former chief minister and state JD(S) president H D Kumaraswamy’s recent hush-hush meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi has given credence to the growing proximity between Congress and JD(S), causing jitters not just in Siddaramaiah camp but even within the saffron brigade.

In the event of a tie-up between Congress and JD(S) at the Centre, and BJP getting a drubbing in the state, making Yeddyurappa’s position shaky and even untenable, new political equations are likely to be written. Can a rump of Congressmen led by Siddaramaiah get to rule the state with the backing of BJP or whether a new chief minister, probably somebody from BJP like Ananth Kumar or Sriramulu backed by the Bellary mining lords, or even Kumaraswamy himself with the support of Congressmen manage to return to power in the state as a quid-pro-quo to extend unconditional support to UPA in Delhi are all questions, whose answers might unfold in the coming months. Karnataka’s politics certainly appears to be destined to witness exciting times.