Resort politics in Karnataka. Why Congress is likely to move its MLAs to hotels

The Congress, crossing the halfway mark, has every reason to celebrate. They have wrested power from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a morale-boosting victory ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections. Amid this news, the Mallikarjun Kharge-led party has made special arrangements and asked all its MLAs to reach Bengaluru this evening from where they will be moved to resorts – either within the state or outside, depending on their final numbers.

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We take a look the resort politics that the Congress is undertaking in Karnataka – from which resorts are being looked at, to why they want to move their MLAs.

Congress’ resort politics underway

As the early trends started showing a win for the Congress in the state, reports emerged that they would be moving their MLAs into resorts. A report by the Indian Express said that the party had booked rooms at the Shangri La hotel in Bengaluru and planned to camp there if they breach the 130-seats mark.

The second plan that the Congress has come up with in order to play it safe is to move their MLAs to neighbouring Tamil Nadu and keep them at a resort in Mahabalipuram.

These developments took place after DK Shivakumar had earlier on Friday refuted claims of moving MLAs. “We are just doing our job. Let’s wait for the results,” the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief had said.

#WATCH | “We are just doing our job. Let’s wait for the results,” says Karnataka Congress President DK Shivakumar after a party meeting ahead of Karnataka election results, Bengaluru #KarnatakaAssemblyElections2023 pic.twitter.com/deetcMQOfp

— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2023

Congress’ resort politics came after party legislator for Shivajinagar, Rizwan Arshad had expressed concern about BJP resorting to horsetrading. He said, “The Congress party is confident of winning the Karnataka Assembly polls and of forming the government with an absolute majority. However, the ruling BJP is creating conspiracies to buy MLAs.”

Political pundits overseeing the developments in the state said that Congress was taking this cautious move as they didn’t want a repeat of what happened in the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections. The Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) had cobbled up an alliance then to form the government. However, it collapsed a year later when the Congress-JD(S) lost 17 of their MLAs, who resigned from the Assembly — after being holed up in a resort in Mumbai leading up to it — and switched sides to the BJP.

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History of resort politics

This move of moving MLAs to resorts isn’t a new phenomenon or reserved to the state of Karnataka alone. India has been seeing resort politics since the 1980s. A look back at political history shows that perhaps the first example of resort politics was in 1982 in Haryana. The leader of Indian National Lok Dal-BJP coalition, Devi Lal took 48 MLAs and camped at a hotel in New Delhi. However, one of the MLAs escaped the hotel through a water pipe following which the Devi Lal coalition could not prove majority.

In 1983, Karnataka had its first brush with resort politics when Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde, who led the Janata Party, took about 80 of his MLAs to a luxury resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru to protect them from what he called the “Congress vultures.” He was successful in winning the trust vote that took place later.

Tamil Nadu’s Sasikala also indulged in resort politics in 2017. After O Panneerselvam resigned as chief minister, she sent her loyal MLAs to Golden Bay resort near Chennai.

Rajasthan too saw resort politics in July 2020. When Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot showed signs of discontent, the Congress gathered its MLAs at the Fairmont Hotel in the state. At the end of it all, Ashok Gehlot remained the chief minister while Pilot was demoted from the post of deputy chief minister.

The most recent incident of resort politics was in Maharashtra when Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde rebelled against his own party and flew out MLAs loyal to him to Guwahati. The incident subsequently led to the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress alliance).

With inputs from agencies

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