On November 4, evening, Maharaja of Karnataka the Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa went to Delhi to meet the emperor, the BJP High Command, and is returning to Karnataka as a Rajapramukh tonight. Looking at one of the six - point compromise formula, I will not be surprised if this Rajapramukh becomes just Mr. Yeddyurappa when the ministry is reshuffled after a month as per the formula. The Chief Minister who is the first among the equals in the Cabinet, as per our Constitution, will become just one among the equals and the Reddy coterie will become the power centre remote-controlling the Cabinet.

This said, I must now dwell upon what money can do in Indian politics. Where money accumulates men decay. This has never been more axiomatic than in the case of Reddy brothers.

Money can purchase anything in the present political world of India. Even politicians. More so in Karnataka. If you have money, if you know the price and a middle - man to fix it, your job is done. Reddy brothers have money, know the price and have indeed found a middle - man, nay a middle - woman in this case, to fix it. No wonder they are returning triumphant to Karnataka while Yeddyurappa is returning defeated without realising that he is defeated. Or is Yeddyurappa displaying the proverbial ostrich behaviour at his own peril? Only time will tell.

The political power in Karnataka seems to have slipped, with the connivance of the BJP High Command, to the hands of Reddy brothers. Considering how Sonia Gandhi handled the ambitious son Jagmohan Reddy of the late Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y. S. R. Reddy, the BJP High Command's handling of the Reddy brothers seems to be a disaster. It also bespeaks of the lack of political acumen and courage on the part of the BJP High Command, which in itself is a divided house, compared to the Congress under Sonia Gandhi.

It is surprising that the BJP High Command was engaged all these past few days in appeasing the Reddy brothers rather than acting firmly against the delinquent behaviour of these money bags. In criminal justice system there is a principle known as 'crime and punishment'. It simply means for every crime one commits there must be a punishment. Similarly in politics their is a principle of “achievement and reward”. For every effort of a politician to build the party and bring it to power, as Yeddyurappa did in Karnataka, there must be a reward. And it is the moral responsibility of the party's High Command to ensure that the reward is properly secured. Unfortunately this has not happened in the case of Yeddyurappa.

As for Yeddyurappa, he should have boldly picked up the gauntlet thrown at him by the Reddy brothers with a little help from the High Command itself. Instead Yeddyurappa chose to kneel before the Reddy brothers and the High Command, when it was enough for him to merely bend. (With apologies to L. K. Advani of Emergency vintage).

While closely following the political developments in Bangalore and Delhi through newspapers, television and our own correspondents, I thought Yeddyurappa would not succumb to intimidating tactics of Reddy brothers to the point of becoming an impotent Chief Minister as he has become under the six-point compromise formula. The High Command in its wisdom seems to have forgotten the two hidden dangers in this formula. One: That it will lead to an effete administration.

[The principal cause for the collapse of Moghul Empire was said to be the effete administration. So also for the collapse of the Roman Empire].

Two: That it will enable the Reddy brothers to be the real chief ministers because one of the points in the compromise formula is to set up a Core Committee to monitor the administration.

I bet that in this Core Committee will be one of the Reddy brothers and Anantha Kumar, the BJP National General Secretary from Karnataka, who allegedly ignited the crisis.

Naturally, under this kind of dispensation there will be two parallel lines of access to the BJP High Command — one of the Chief Minister and another of the Core Committee members. This will, for sure, fill the Complaint Box of the BJP High Command. As a result, our ministers will have to spend more time in Delhi than in Bangalore. The Core Committee will become the Super Cabinet of the Karnataka ministry.

The result:
Henceforth Karnataka will be ruled by the Reddy brothers while Yeddyurappa will merely reign. Take it from me that from now on, Reddys will be the de facto rulers of Karnataka while Yeddyurappa will be a mere de jure one.

In the past 18 months that Yeddyurappa has been the Chief Minister, he was the real puppeteer holding all the strings of administration. Now under this formula, he has become a puppet in the hands of the Reddy brothers and the BJP High Command with RSS, the Guardian Angel of the BJP, looking the other way.

My interaction with Aam Aadmi among the RSS and BJP sympathisers suggested that they were not just disappointed but devastated by this unfair and unjust compromise formula.

Yeddyurappa, who went to Delhi as a proud Chief Minister of BJP, has returned humbled with his wings clipped no doubt. Worse was that his 20 years of labour to bring BJP to power in Karnataka, his tapas and sankalp in this direction seems to have been ignored by the high command in its anxiety to please the Reddy brothers whose foster - mother is Sushma Swaraj.

If I were the High Command, I would have told these Reddy brothers: Dear brothers, please go back and first build those houses for the victims of the recent flood, provide them succour and then come to me. I will surely listen to your grievances and provide you relief.

The High Command appeared to have been passionately obsessed with Reddy brothers when it should have asked the Reddy brothers to strengthen the hands of the Chief Minister at this hour of great calamity in our State.

Mahatma Gandhi went to the Round Table Conference and returned empty - handed. The country was divided. Nobody was happy about the division except Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his Muslim League. But in retrospect, Mahatma Gandhi had upheld certain values, principles, ideals and above all, the truth even at the cost of the pain and horror of partition. Of course, we cannot expect Yeddyurappa to rise to the level of the Mahatma who believed means should justify ends.

Tagore has said somewhere that an elephant does not know its strength nor the flower its fragrance. I figure this is the case with Yeddyurappa too. He has the strength and support of his caste — Lingayat — the vote-base of BJP. He has the moral strength derived from his more than 20 years of sacrifice both in RSS and BJP as a testimony to claim the chief ministership of Karnataka when it comes to power - sharing. Obviously Reddys do not have these advantages and yet Yeddyurappa has yielded total ground to them.

Of course, the Reddy brothers have money. Did the BJP High Command think that without Reddy's money it could not have fought the election? Did the High Command think that it was with Reddys' money the BJP could win 110 seats (a shortfall of eight seats) in the last election? If it did, it was wrong. No doubt Yeddyurappa did take help from Reddy brothers for BJP's 'Operation Kamala' but it does not entitle Reddy brothers to demand the Shakespearean pound of flesh from Yeddyurappa.

After all even if Reddy brothers had not obliged, Yeddyurappa himself was capable of raising enough money for the Operation Kamala. Did he not collect more than a 1,000 crores of rupees during his padayathra for the Flood Relief Fund? And of course, Yeddyurappa too has rich friends like, for example, Rajiv Chandrashekhar, the industrialist MP who is also the chief of Aasare which is a nodal agency for building lakhs of houses for the flood victims. When such is his strength, why should Yeddyurappa have become the shadow Chief Minister is a million - dollar question.

I wonder whether this is the same BJP which challenged the Congress saying it is 'a party with a difference'. I do not see any difference. I remember BJP, after six years of weak administration at the Centre as NDA, entering the Parliamentary election with the slogan India Shining and come a cropper at the hustings. The voter knew neither India was shining under NDA rule nor the BJP as a party.

Now after seven years, I thought at least in Karnataka BJP would shine. Alas, I see an eclipse instead.