This opinion was first published on news18.com | MAY 01, 2023.
This is the third part in a 3-part series by Nalin Mehta on the Karnataka elections. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
It was a political decision made by Rajiv Gandhi over three decades ago, but it remains a major talking point in Karnataka elections 2023. Few may remember Veerendra Patil today, but his unceremonious dismissal as Karnataka chief minister in 1990 paved the way for BJP’s first inroads into the state in the 1990s, with the state’s influential Lingayat voters.
Now, in 2023, with the BJP aiming to safeguard its Lingayat vote-base and the Congress looking to break into its citadel, the Veerendra Patil story keeps coming up again and again on the campaign trail….
Gandhi had no doubt expected that the change of guard would be smooth.
But Patil fought back, and publicly. He invited journalists and a Doordarshan TV crew to his house. He told them that, while he had been temporarily unwell, his faculties were intact and he would keep working as chief minister. Speaking to DD, Patil was “more or less declaring war against his own party”. “I was not asked to step down and I am not stepping down,” he said in his televised speech, adding that the leadership issue “did not arise” when Gandhi had met him.
With the chief minister remaining adamant, the Congress calling a legislators’ meeting to elect a new leader and both sides claiming to have the required numbers, President R Venkataraman declared President’s Rule in the state on October 10, after duly seeking advice from Governor Bhanu Pratap Singh.
VP Singh was then serving as …..’
Read full opinion on news18.com
This is the third part in a 3-part series by Nalin Mehta on the Karnataka elections. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
This opinion was first published on news18.com | MAY 01, 2023.
