I just got back to Bengalooru only to find it reeling under the twin-sledgehammers of unending downpour and Siddaramaiah.

Like me, the gentle people of Bangalore and Karnataka, far from complaining, actually welcome the rains. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, rain is the best visual broadcaster. Of lifting off the thin sheen of tar and asphalt. Of revealing in full potholed glory the corrupt nexus of the politician — corporator — contractor. Of craters of uneven shapes, sizes, and depths across Bangalore, making traffic lights redundant. An aerial view shows today’s Bangalore as a filthy, slushy art gallery.

Which is why like rain, we must let Siddaramaiah do his bidding since he’s his own best all-round broadcaster. The wisdom of the ages says that it’s always good to allow the unsavoury side of people in power to reveal itself because it’s then that they will celebrate the true extent of their depravity on their own volition. In full view of the public.

In this case, Karnataka’s Most Beloved Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, since he took office in 2013, has been doing just that in glorious technicolour. The typical modus operandi goes something like this:

Announce a “Bhagya” (dole) with total fanfare and pomp. Get your face plastered all over Bangalore (and elsewhere in the state) on gigantic billboards broadcasting your boundless munificence. Rinse. Repeat.

Steps 1–4 has passed off as governance and administration in Karnataka from 2013 to now. And it promises to be even worse now that we’re on the threshold of the election season.

But this is actually the benign part of Governance Siddaramaiah™.

Crow Threat to Chief Minister. Pic Courtesy: Praja TV

Splinter and Rule

The graver and more alarming danger is Siddaramaiah’s ruthless and unbridled pursuit of the time-tested B̶r̶i̶t̶i̶s̶h̶ Congress tradition of splinter and rule.

What began as numerous “Bhagyas” doled out first to Muslims and similar free carrots to Christians quickly degenerated into appeasement of radical Jihadi elements drawn from such terror outfits like the Popular Front of India (PFI). In short, Siddaramaiah seems to have found great affection for the Kerala Model, which has turned that state into a Jihadi Laboratory.

To put this in perspective, here’s what the Kerala Model means in terms of Jihad-related numbers between 2008 to present: from seven incidents in 2008, it progressed to thirty in 2012, thirty one in 2013, forty six in 2014, and fifty in 2015. Or a grand total of 231 Jihad-related incidents in the last nine years. Just in Kerala.

To drive the chills deeper, I urge the interested reader, concerned citizen, and caring Indian to read these academic papers on how Kerala has emerged as a Jihadi terror hub.