The Man Who Would Be PM

FOUR days after he almost became prime minister, Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda was at Tirupati—a journey he has been undertaking every May 18 for 15 years now—for a special puja to seek Balaji's blessings on his 64th birthday. And going by the lightning upswing in the Karnataka chief minister's political fortunes, someone up there must be pleased with his devotion. Gowda was supposed to be unseated as chief minister after the Lok Sabha polls as his party was not expected to gain more than 10 of the 28 seats in the state—an excuse for legislators unhappy over not getting the benefits of office. Two weeks from now, that possibility still exists—with 15 MPs from Karnataka in tow, Gowda is waiting to move into South Block and occupy the country's most powerful post.

"You don't become a national leader by just being in politics for 35 years or getting 15 MPs elected. And I will not cross the boundaries of Karnataka," the Vokkaliga strong-man had grinned after the results were in. Less than a week later, the man whose greatest political ambition was to be chief minister, was eating his words in New Delhi—to his own consternation. The diploma holder in civil engineering, who executed construction contracts in his native Holenarasipura in Hassan district before entering electoral politics as a rebel Congress candidate in the 1962 assembly elections, has come a long way.

Gowda's present streak of luck is typical of the ups and downs that have accompanied his four decades in politics. He has been an MLA, leader of the Opposition during Devaraj Urs' chief ministership,Cabinet minister under R.K. Hegde, SJP MP and chief minister. First, Gowda was pipped at the post for chief ministership by Hegde, whom he troubled no end as irrigation minister, and later by S.R. Bommai. Gowda was swept away by a Congress wave in 1989 when he lost the assembly elections from two constituencies in the Vokkaliga belt and slipped into political oblivion. Only to surface again two years later after parting ways with the Janata Dal and joining Chandra Shekhar's SJP. Gowda rode on motorbikes with Subramanian Swamy campaigning for his party in the '91 Lok Sabha elections and was elected to Parliament after a recount in his Hassan constituency.

Not one to lose an opportunity to flaunt his 'son of the soil' image, ever since becoming chief minister Gowda has success-fully mixed rustic arrogance with a political cunning to consolidate social forces on behalf of the Janata Dal in the state. Known for his lingering political rivalry with Hegde who is everything that Gowda is not—suave, media savvy with a cultivated urbane image—the pro-liberalisation Gowda however impresses with his clear understanding of socio-political issues and economics. "Don't try to screw us," Gowda told US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown when he visited Bangalore last year; what Gowda actually meant to say was: "Don't try to tighten the screw on us."

This time around, as leader of the Third Front, he is clear about his choices as he tries to tighten the screws on the Vajpayee Government before the crucial confidence vote. Says he: "I never dreamed of this. But when senior leaders like Jyoti Basu and Indrajit Gupta persuaded me and reposed faith in me, how can I run away?" Indeed.