Turncoat troublemakers: A history of 'Operation Kamala'

Governments in states like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, and Himachal Pradesh have been toppled using the unwritten 'Operation Kamala' handbook

While the gong of the electoral bell reverberates loudly throughout Karnataka with less than a month remaining for the 2023 Assembly polls, this is the right time to look back at how the politics of the state as well as other parts of India has taken shape since the BJP, for the first time, formed a government in south India.

'Operation Kamala' is a widely popular term that has been given by members of the opposition to efforts of the BJP to make MLAs or MPs who have won on tickets of other parties to defect to them while bypassing the anti-defection law.

In a 2009 interview with India Today, political analyst E. Raghavan had said about this pratice by the Bharatiya Janta Party. "Operation Kamala is a devious device to defeat the anti-defection law, as it exists today. As a political strategy, it might help the BJP, but even politically, it is completely immoral."

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But, to the victor goes the spoils, and B S Yediyurappa in a 2019 interview with DH had proclaimed, "Operation Kamala was not wrong and I don't regret it. It is part of democracy."

He had also said, "It was necessitated by the fact that we won 110 seats and required 4 members' support. We had to do that to form govt in Karnataka. It won't happen now."

Origins

The term 'Operation Kamala' first came into the foray in 2008, when former Karnataka minister G Janardhana Reddy was widely accused of practising under-the-table tactics to snatch away MLAs from the Congress-JD(S) coalition to form a BJP government in the state after the saffron party fell short of the majority by three seats.

Reddy and some other senior BJP leaders, according to an Economic Times report from 2018, managed to coax 3 MLAs from the Congress and 4 from the JD(S) to quit their seats.

Later, all of them contested the bypolls on the BJP's ticket, and five managed to win once again. This made the BJP's strength in the Vidhan Sabha go to 115 from 110, while the magic figure stood at 112.

2018 Karnataka Elections

The same thing happened in the 2018 elections, when Ramesh Jarikholi, a former Congress MLA, along with Anand Singh, had resigned from the H D Kumaraswamy government. Jarikholi managed to coax 15 other MLAs to quit their positions in the Assembly, which toppled the Kumaraswamy government.

After resigning, some of the rebel Karnataka MLAs had also fled to Mumbai and even instructed the police to make sure no INC leader gets to meet them.

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As a result of this horse-trading, the Cong-JD(S) government was reduced to 101 seats in the Assembly, making way for the BJP to form the government with 105 seats.

Delhi

Beyond Karnataka's borders, there has also been allegations against the BJP of practising horse-trading in other parts of the country.

A report by the New Indian Express quotes Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal saying in 2022, "The BJP has spent Rs 6,500 crore on buying 277 MLAs, they also tried to buy Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) MLAs in Delhi, and they offered Rs 20 crore to each. They brought Rs 800 crore to buy MLAs of Delhi."

Kejriwal later called for a confidence test to prove AAP MLAs are sided with him, despite the BJP's efforts to woo legislators as a part of their 'Operation Lotus'. However, Kejriwal ended up winning the floor test.

Goa

In another instance of toppling elected governments by underhand tactics, the BJP lured 10 Congress MLAs in July 2019 along with those from other parties to the BJP, that gave them majority (27) in the 40-member Goa Assembly.

In a similar move in 2022, former Goa CM Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, and six other MLAs of the Congress defected to the BJP.

The Chief MInister of Goa, Pramod Sawant, taking a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, had then said that the "Congress Chhodo Yatra" saw its beginnings in Goa.

Madhya Pradesh

Congress emerged as the single largest party in the MP Assembly after the 2018 elections, and Kamal Nath became the Chief Minister of the state.

However, two years later, on March 10, 2020, 22 Congress MLAs resigned from their posts and later joined the BJP in the presence of J P Nadda. A day later, influential leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also quit the party.

This led to the falling of the Kamal Nath government and Shivraj Singh Chouhan swore in as the Chief Minister of the state. He later gave Scindia a Rajya Sabha ticket.

Maharashtra

Although the BJP did not follow the 'Operation Kamala' rulebook in Maharashtra in 2022, the political crisis that the state has recently witnessed can be seen as a different take on the BJP's approach to topple governments.

After the 2019 Assembly elections in the state, Uddhav Thackeray broke away from the Mahayuti alliance that was formed between the BJP and the Shiv Sena after disputes arose regarding power sharing. He chose to join the Congress-NCP alliance, which was then renamed to Maha Vikas Agadhi, to form the government and he became the CM.

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However, another Sena leader, Eknath Shinde, along with two-third of the Sena's MLAs, protested against Uddhav breaking the BJP-Sena alliance and chose to break away from the party.

The rebel Sena MLAs were first lodged in Gujarat's Surat and then taken to Assam's Guwahati (both BJP-ruled states).

However, when Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma was criticised for getting himself involved in Maharashtra politics, he declined any knowledge of the matter, according to an NDTV report.

On June 23, 2022, 37 Sena MLAs declared Shinde as the party legislature's leader. Shinde later met with the state's governor and called for a no-confidence motion against Thackeray in the Assembly, which was granted.

Shiv Sena moved the Supreme Court against this order, but the top court did not stay the no-confidence motion and ordered the floor test to be conducted on June 30 as per Shinde's appeal.

Deciding to not wait till the floor test, Thackeray resigned from his position as CM. On June 30, Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis swore in as the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister, respectively.

Adding insult to injury, the name Shiv Sena and the party symbol were allotted to the Shinde faction by the Electoral Commission. The coup resulted in Uddhav losing the name and symbol of the party his influential father Balasaheb Thackeray had founded.