Hyderabad: Ahead of the counting of votes for the assembly elections in five states, reports about the Congress confining its winning MLAs to hotels and resorts to avoid horse-trading has revived the memories of famous incidents of what has now begun to be called as “resort politics”. Senior Karnataka Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Saturday denied reports in a section of the media that the Congress high command had asked him to stash winnng Congress candidates in Telangana to hotels and resorts to avoid 'poaching' by rival parties.
Talking to reporters in Bengaluru over the matter, Shivakumar said, "No MLAs will be going anywhere. Nobody has given me a responsibility or called me. I have my own opinion on the poll analysis that is being shown by the media. I am confident that we will win all the states”. The reports on the Congress deciding to shift its winning MLAs to hotels and resorts came close to the heels of various exit polls giving an edge to the Congress in Telangana where counting of votes will be held on Sunday along with four more states-Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram.
Let us have a look at the dramatic episodes of resort politics in recent past.
Maharashtra political crisis: The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government comprising the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Conress were left stunned after Sena leader and present Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the other rebel Sena legislators camped at the Radisson Blu hotel in Guwahati, after having arrived from Surat in Gujarat by a chartered flight.
The resort politics eventually led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray led MVA government as Shinde led a new coalition supported by the BJP. In the November of 2019 too, amid the high political drama of government formation in Maharashtra and threat of ‘poaching’ of MLAs, the NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena shifted their legislators to different luxury hotels in Mumbai.
Likewise, to ensure that his MLAs were not won over by the Shiv Sena-BJP opposition in 2002, then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh packed them off to a luxury resort in Bengaluru, and visited them to make sure they didn’t jump ship. On being asked why the MLAs had been flown to Bangalore if he was so confident of their loyalty, Deshmukh had said it had been done to prevent “street fights” in Mumbai.
GOA: In March 2022, among the results of the five state elections, Goa and Uttarakhand saw a tighter contest as the Congress moved its leaders to a resort in north Goa ahead of the results, saying the leaders were attending “a series of birthday celebrations”. However, the BJP ended up winning 20 of 40 seats in the state and comfortably formed its government again.
Madhya Pradesh: In the March of 2020, 17 MLAs loyal to then Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia including six ministers were flown by a chartered flight to Bengaluru in BJP-ruled Karnataka after which the Kamal Nath government collapsed in the central state. BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan was sworn in as the CM as Scindia entered the BJP along with his loyalists.
Karnataka, the hub of resort politics: Although herding MLAs to resorts has been done in many States, Karnataka seems to hold the top spot in the number of times this has been done. Beginning with Ramakrishna Hegde in 1983, who sought to save his government from being dissolved by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, BJP's B.S. Yeddyurappa's name also surfaced in the period between 2009-11, and also in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2012.
During a crucial trust vote in the Assembly, around 80 BJP MLAs were taken away to a luxury resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru and it happened multiple times in the 2009-11 period. In 2017, Karnataka grabbed national headlines when Congress leaders led by DK Shivakumar successfully prevented BJP’s attempts to poach Congress MLAs from Gujarat during the Rajya Sabha elections. The Congress kept 44 MLAs from Gujarat at a resort in Bidadi for nearly a week. In January 2019, ahead of a crucial CLP meeting, Congress had again shifted its MLAs to the resort in Bidadi, fearing poaching by BJP. The Congress, on July 9, 2019, shifted its MLAs from a hotel in the city to a resort on the outskirts, amid fears that some more legislators may resign.
Rajasthan: In the July of 2020, on the heels of a similar rebellion by then Congress MLA Jyotiraditya Scindia that led to the fall of the Kamal Nath-led Madhya Pradesh government four months prior, deputy CM Sachin Pilot showed signs of discontent. The Congress then gathered its MLAs at the Fairmont Hotel in the state to prevent them from defecting.
The MLAs favouring Pilot were themselves in Delhi and they subsequently moved to a resort in a BJP-ruled state. At the end of the episode, there was no change in power, and Gehlot remained the Chief Minister while Pilot was demoted from the post of Deputy Chief Minister.
Gujrat: In 1995, Shankersinh Vaghela rebelled against the BJP leadership with 47 MLAs on his side. Vaghela took them to a high-end hotel in Madhya Pradesh, where they were kept for seven days. Eventually a compromise was worked out and the then Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel was replaced with a Vaghela supporter, Suresh Mehta.
