BJP leaders must stop betraying their own workers

 The crisis now shaking coastal Karnataka has its roots in one truth: BJP leaders have betrayed their own workers. At a time when people expected the party to stand with justice in the Soujanya case and in the many crimes linked to Dharmasthala, the BJP’s top men chose instead to shield the accused. They went so far as to sit with the Dharmasthala Heggades at the shrine, sending a message that power and influence mattered more to them than truth and justice. The workers have answered with silence — they stayed away from the rally that was supposed to gather a lakh people but could not even cross ten thousand. That empty ground is the loudest signal yet: the BJP workers will not march behind leaders who compromise with injustice.

This is no small quarrel. BJP has always prided itself on being a cadre-driven party. But cadres are not slaves. They have shown in Dakshina Kannada that they will not obey orders when those orders run against the people’s conscience. Leaders who think they can impose decisions from above and expect blind obedience are living in the past. Without the workers, what can leaders do? No rallies, no votes, no victories.

Even worse, BJP leaders are not alone in this betrayal. Congress leaders too are standing shoulder to shoulder with them in protecting the Dharmasthala interests. The Chief Minister and his deputies have admitted that the SIT probe is only a formality to cool public anger. That is nothing less than an insult to the victims. When both ruling and opposition leaders join hands to shield the powerful, they show that politics has become a cartel — a closed club to defend privilege while the people are left defenceless.

But people are not helpless. The boycott of the Dharmasthala rally proved that workers and local communities can send a message sharper than any speech. The growing call for a Soujanya Party shows that justice itself may become the basis of a new political force in coastal Karnataka. If both BJP and Congress cadres refuse to campaign for their leaders, then the ground will clear for new candidates who fight elections not with the backing of shrine bosses but with the backing of betrayed citizens.

The BJP, more than anyone else, should take this as a serious warning. The party rose in Karnataka because its workers believed it was different, because it claimed to put integrity above compromise. Now those same workers are saying, “Not in our name.” If BJP leaders continue to mortgage themselves to Dharmasthala, they risk more than defeat. They risk political extinction in a region that was once their stronghold.

The message is simple: stand with justice, not with the powerful. Listen to workers, not to elites. Or else, be ready to face the consequences.