Karnataka Chief Minister Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yediyurappa turned 77 on Thursday, which also marks 45 years of his political life. A mass leader who installed the first BJP government in South India in 2008, Yediyurappa continues to hold the party together, amid voices of dissent. In the absence of a strong successor, Yediyurappa is still BJP's best bet.
At 76, Yediyurappa was made the CM, a departure from BJP’s unspoken rule of barring people above 75 from holding top posts. But unlike in 2009, this time, the party is treading with caution. The first stint of Yediyurappa as the chief minister in 2009 had ended up threatening the very existence of the party. The first BJP government in South India had got embroiled in corruption charges, witnessed Yediyurappa step down owing to alleged corruption charges and the infighting ensured three chief ministers in five years.
This time, too, the CM is in a fire-fighting mode as the "core" BJP leaders are feeling sidelined with the "defector" legislators gaining the upper hand in the government (they were inducted into the cabinet and given portfolios of their choice). Another allegation is that the Lingayat strongman has been sidelining his community leaders, which was made public through an anonymous letter that surfaced a few days before Yediyurappa's 77th birthday. The disgruntled brigade suggested that the CM step down as he was suffering from "age-related" health issues. The growing clout of Yediyurappa's son B.Y. Vijayendra in the government and his elevation within the party after he was denied the Assembly ticket to contest in Varuna constituency against former chief minister Siddaramaiah's son Dr Yathindra in May 2018 has not gone down well with party leaders and workers alike.
After taking oath as the CM for the fourth time in July 2019, Yediyurappa openly expressed his intent to keep his promise – of rewarding the "defector" MLAs from the Congress and the JD(S) (who won the bypolls on BJP tickets) for their “sacrifice” as their resignations had paved the way for installing the BJP government in the state. The migration of “outsiders” into the party has sure upset the apple cart and the party is caught in many dilemmas—ideology versus political pragmatism.
The lack of coordination between the party’s central leadership and the chief minister is obvious. The cabinet expansion, like its formation, was a daunting task for the chief minister. In August 2019, Yediyurapa was left to fight a lone battle even as two-thirds of the state was devastated by unprecedented floods displacing seven lakh people. The party high command had put off cabinet formation for almost 25 days. Later, the Centre’s alleged delay in release of flood relief funds gave the political opponents enough ammunition to corner Yediyurappa. When the cabinet was formed, it had “accommodated” many Yediyurappa loyalists but it also sprang a last minute surprise to the chief minister, too, with the sudden anointment of three deputy chief ministers as though to rein in the veteran mass leader.
The "Y" factor
Even as the BJP high command and the chief minister are struggling to be on the same page, the party leadership is aware that it can little afford to lose the support of Lingayat community, its core votebank, or sideline Yediyurappa. Even during the peak of the Lingayat movement demanding a separate religion status, allegedly fuelled by the previous Congress regime, the community firmly backed Yediyurappa, their tallest leader. The BJP won 104 seats in Assembly polls in 2018 and 25 out of 28 in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
After Yediyurappa quit the BJP in 2011, floating a new party—Karnataka Janata Party (KJP)—he had also walked away with 10 per cent of BJP’s vote share, mainly of the dominant Lingayat community, which holds sway over 100 Assembly constituencies. His comeback into the party was facilitated by the central leadership just before the crucial 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
While the party acknowledges Yediyurappa as a mass leader who changed the saffron party’s political fortunes in a Congress-ruled state and continues to hold immense clout, it is conscious of the fact that there is a dearth of second rung leadership in the state.
The appointment of three deputies—Govind Karjol (68), a dalit leader and five-time MLA from Mudhol, Laxman Savadi (59), a Lingayat leader and three-time MLA from Athani (who lost the seat in 2018), and Dr C.N. Ashwathnarayan (51), a Vokkaliga and two-time MLA from Malleswaram—was not only unpalatable to Yediyurappa, but also disappointing to seniors like former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and former deputies K.S. Eshwarappa (Kuruba) and R. Ashok (Vokkaliga). But it was part of the altered strategy of the saffron party which is hoping to shift its Lingayat-centric politics to one that assimilates all castes and communities to achieve a pan-Karnataka party image.
The party which has a strong presence in north Karnataka, the Lingayat belt, is aggressively making inroads into Old Mysore region, the Vokkaliga heartland, where both the Congress and the JD(S) still hold sway. Dr C.N. Ashwathnarayan, a Vokkaliga leader, was made a DCM overlooking the seniority of former deputy chief minister R. Ashok (currently a minister). Savadi, a grassroot leader and a non-dynast from Belagavi, with immense clout in the cooperative sector was elevated to the DCM post despite his defeat in Athani last elections. A former minister and a Lingayat leader from north Karnataka, Savadi is seen as a probable successor to Yediyurappa.
The party high command picking Nalin Kumar Kateel, a Hindutva leader and three-time MP from Dakshina Kannada, as the state party president to succeed Yediyurappa, was again to reward the “ordinary party worker” and to balance the caste equation as the dominant communities have always controlled crucial posts and Kateel belongs to the small Bunt community.
By promoting a collective leadership, the party will appeal to all communities. The fresh faces also bring new vigour into the party. The young leaders if groomed will have a longer shelf life and help the party overcome leadership vacuum, say insiders.
In its bid to change the rules of engagement with its state leaders and weaning the party off its dependency on any one community or leader, a change of guard in Karnataka seems sooner than later.
