A lesson to be learnt here

If the clips from a mobile phone, shown extensively on television, are true, then Hartal Halappa's case is probably the first in which a minister has been caught on camera with his pants down.

Technology is now a new hazard that politicians will have to learn to deal with. There was simply no question of desperately hanging on to the job in the hope of brazening out a controversy. That is why the food minister speedily resigned to help his party save face.

Sex and politics is a deadly combination and one can never ever save face after public disclosure. It is not only Halappa's political career that is at stake; the BJP, too, will find it hard to salvage its image for several reasons. First, there is at least another member in the ministry who was accused by a nurse of exploiting her. The minister and the lady concerned may have sorted the matter outside the court but the fact remains that there was an allegation of that nature.

Halappa's case is worse because, in his case, the allegation is of sexual assault. It is worse because there is sufficient reason to believe that he knew such a charge was coming. Much worse because it appears even the party leadership had some knowledge that he was in a spot. If the leadership had acted at that point, instead of waiting for the issue to blow up, it may have been possible to distance itself from the episode.

Not any longer, particularly after chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and the state BJP president KS Eshwarappa defended Halappa. They may have done so without waiting to learn the facts. In such matters it is always prudent to wait for the event to play out before committing an institution, in this case the party, to a position. Rape or molestation is serious and political parties by now ought to know that collateral damage they suffer is pretty severe even if, finally after due processes of law, it turns out the charge was unfounded.

It is difficult to draw a conclusion based on facts or statements available currently. Apart from video clips from a mobile phone, there is a police complaint and a detailed statement by the lady who was allegedly assaulted. One may argue that the affected parties — the lady and her husband — waited for some five months for other considerations. Blackmail has been suggested by those who are somewhat suspicious of the charge based on the inference that the husband of the victim is not above board.

Even if that is the case, it seems there was some material potentially useful for blackmail.These are, of course, issues that will become clear once a proper investigation takes place.
When that process starts, the first action of the police will be to take Halappa into custody. The police will have no leeway to discriminate. That would be an embarrassment of the first order because it involves an alleged ministerial misconduct and the ruling party, used to citing wrong doings from the past to defend itself, will have very little elbow room.

The impression that there are too many unsavory characters in key positions in the party will not do any good in the long run. Though home minster VS Acharya has said that the law will take its own course and deal with Halappa as required, one can surely expect the state Opposition to make capital out of this episode. This is an opportunity for them to go for the jugular. The implications of this case go far beyond the dispensation in Karnataka. At the national level, the BJP will have some explaining to do and a bit of its morality façade will fade.

Halappa is not the first politician to face the music for straying from the straight path. A couple of them were caught in the past for indiscretions which, by comparison, would be considered minor, while many, known to stray, made sure they did so discreetly and were not caught. As a rule, political parties studiously avoid hurling bricks at others unless one is caught. Like corruption, affairs and relationship outside wedlock are not unusual but they are always treated as belonging to the private domain.

A charge of rape, however, is in another league and that is why there is such a high level of indignation. Governments which seemed to morally or politically condone such acts, even if it did not interfere with the legal processes, have paid a heavy price in the past. Gundu Rao's government is a case in point.

The current crop of top leaders in the ruling party ought to know that. It was by exploiting the perception that the government of the day was morally bankrupt that Yeddyurappa and Acharya, among others from the BJP, made their ways into the Vidhana Soudha. That is a lesson, one hopes, they have not forgotten.