Shakuntala Hegde loses Rajya Sabha election

When he was alive he was humiliated and short changed. When he is no more, former Karnataka chief minister and union minister Ramakrishna Hegde's family continues to be short-changed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

It was the turn of Hegde's wife, Shakuntala to become the scapegoat when she lost the Rajya Sabha elections, which she had contested on a BJP ticket from Karnataka.

Her rival B.K. Hari-prasad, twice Rajya Sabha member in the past, not only managed to defeat her but also claim the most number of votes, 48, among the four successful candidates.

Shakuntala who was a surprise candidate of the BJP, ended last with just 38 votes. The winner needed at least 45 votes to win. When Hegde was alive, the BJP had humiliated him in 1998, when the first NDA government was formed. As one of the key allies who made it possible for the BJP to rope in many allies to form the government, he was expected to get a key portfolio.

In fact the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee even offered him the defence portfolio. But before the swearing-in ceremony he had withdrawn the offer as George Fernandes insisted on the same portfolio and got it.

Hegde did not even protest and accepted the commerce portfolio.

After the first NDA government fell in 1999 and a new government was formed, Hegde found himself completely sidelined. He did not even get into the cabinet. Just before the elections he had agreed to merge his party, the Lok Shakthi, with the Janata Dal(U), of which Fernandes was the president.

But when it came to forming the government in 1999, Vajpayee left it to Fernandes to decide the ministers from his party. And Hegde was left out.

Gradually, Hegde faded from the national political scene, ever since he retired from Rajya Sabha in 2002.

Later just as the elections to the Karnataka Assembly neared, both the BJP and George Fernandes started wooing an ailing Hegde. But before he could take a decision he passed away earlier this year.

The BJP did not stop there. They wooed Hegde's son Bharat and daughter Mamta Nichani, to gain the sympathy of Hegde's sympathisers and followers. However, neither of them were given a ticket to contest either the Assembly or Lok Sabha.

Now when it was thought that the tryst of Hegde's family with BJP had ended, they again convinced a completely apolitical Shakuntala to enter the fray for the Rajya Sabha elections, though they did not have necessary support to get her to win.

For BJP its President Venkaiah Naidu was the first candidate. And they ensured that he won. Shakuntala, hurt and humiliated, watched as the Congress' Hariprasad managed the extra votes required from the independents without much trouble.

The others who won yesterday were Oscar Fernandes (Congress), Dr M.A.M. Ramaswamy (JD-S) and Venkaiah Naidu.

For the Hegde family it was a sad day.

– Girish Nikam is a commentator on South India