When Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar stepped out after their second ‘unity breakfast meeting,’ the real headline wasn’t the unity. It was what gleamed on their wrists — Gold watches.

NDTV identified the identical gold timepieces on the CM and Dy.CM’s wrist as Santos de Cartier, each estimated at over Rs. 43 lakh. A golden handshake, literally. One only wishes their administration matched the gold standard of their watches. Sadly, it does not.

Instead, we have a Government in paralysis where its top two leaders are busy sporting shiny watches while shoving down nati chicken and making political deals. It begs the question that is now whispered loudly…

Is Karnataka becoming the Bihar of South India?

The answer is not yet, but we’re getting there.

When Police postings are bought, when bureaucrats become puppets, when industries migrate to Andhra Pradesh and when corruption engulfs every aspect of a Kannadiga’s life, Bengaluru is looking more and more like Patna.

Shivakumar, to his credit, is at least honest about being rich. “By birth an agriculturist, by profession a businessman, by passion a politician,” he says proudly.

Siddaramaiah, by contrast, projects a humble past and socialist credentials, which makes his growing taste for opulence, like a gold watch, a contradiction ticking loudly on his wrist, of which, shockingly, he is not embarrassed about!

This is not Siddaramaiah’s first tryst with luxury. Remember 2016, when H.D. Kumaraswamy accused him of wearing a Rs. 70-lakh Hublot watch? The CM famously quipped he’d happily sell it for Rs. 10 lakh if that price were true.

If I had been in that room, I would have bought it on the spot because I knew the watch indeed cost around Rs. 70 lakh.

Luxury watches were once the domain of Maharajas and industrial scions. I recall a visit to the late Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar at Bangalore Palace.

During our conversation about timepieces, he casually summoned his attendant, who emerged with two steel chests. Inside lay a museum of timepieces.

In the boxes were timepieces by watchmakers like Cartier from the 1800s, Piaget pendant watches, Patek Philippe marvels and gold Rolexes.

 It seems that what took royalty centuries to accumulate, today’s politicians acquire faster than they pass a municipal tender.

 Siddaramaiah, of course, says such watches are “gifts.” But one wonders, who loves Siddu enough to hand him a Rs. 70-lakh timepiece? And if he were truly a socialist as he claims to be, could he not have redirected that generosity?

He could have funded girls’ education, helped distressed farmers or created scholarships for students in his own Constituency or even his own community with that watch money. Instead, he accepted it and strapped it on his wrist. No wonder, MLC Chalavadi Narayanaswamy said Siddaramaiah is a “Majawadi and not a Samajwadi.”

This is where one remembers Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. When the late President of India left Rashtrapati Bhavan, all his belongings fit into two suitcases.

He warned that gifts in public life are dangerous because they always carry hidden                    intentions.

That said, Dr. Abdul Kalam did accept gifts. He accepted only one type of gift: Books.

The tragedy is that today’s leaders prefer things that illuminate their wrists rather than their intellect.

Predictably, the Opposition, the BJP, pounced on the watch controversy. But the Opposition in Karnataka has mastered the art of irrelevance because…

The BJP in Karnataka wants to make an issue of watches worth Rs. 43 lakh while remaining curiously silent on the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam worth Rs. 4,300 crore. Damn cowards.

Also, let us not forget their own indulgences. In 2016, while Kumaraswamy lectured Siddaramaiah on lavishness, his 26-year-old son was driving around in a Rs. 5-crore                                  Lamborghini sports car.

When the BJP attacked Siddaramaiah for riding in a luxury car, Yediyurappa too had bought the same Rs. 1.20-crore Toyota Vellfire.

Here, it seems hypocrisy is bipartisan.  Luxury is secular.

But the deeper tragedy is not the watches. It is what they reveal about us, the voters. 

The voter, in spite of seeing the opulence of politicians, are still not voting them out. Their minds are ensnared by caste, cash and  cynical calculations. 

The result: Karnataka today has 31 crorepathi MLAs, the highest in India. Our Chief Minister, a man who has created a perception of being a socialist, is the third richest CM in the country! His Deputy is India’s second-richest MLA !

One would think that a State where even a socialist CM can become a crorepathi, a State where the CM who has a record of presenting the highest number of budgets, such a State’s financial health will be as shiny as the gold watches on that State’s politicians’ wrists. But alas, we are a debt-ridden State.

But how?! Guess when the CM and Dy.CM of a State wear watches made of gold, then such a State will turn to rust.

For now, one thing is clear. While we are governed by men who keep perfect time on their golden wrist, they will deliver nothing worth our time.

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