In pushing for the erudite Bommai as his successor, BSY believes he has taken the sting, not just out of his detractors within the BJP ranks, who wanted him out at any cost, but the opposition Congress as well.
Bengaluru: The resignation, the tears, the sea of orange as the seers came out in support… Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yediyurappa may have been shown the door by the BJP, citing his age, his failing health and the cacophony from a phalanx of critics who levelled charges of corruption and interference against him and his younger son, B.Y. Vijayendra, the so-called “super CM”. But if anyone believes that this is the end of the road for Karnataka’s four-time Chief Minister, who, incidentally, has not completed even one of those terms, they should think again.
BSY still has one foot in the door. Or, at the very least, a toehold. As an elected member of the Assembly, he has no intention of fading into obscurity. As the BJP’s proven electoral match winner in the South, he aims to be the shadow Chief Minister
As the congratulatory messages poured in from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for Basavaraj Bommai, the man he picked to succeed him as Karnataka’s new Chief Minister on Wednesday, there was no mistaking the quiet satisfaction in the outgoing Chief Minister’s camp. They had staved off the embarrassment of an unceremonious exit, and more importantly, deftly outmanoeuvred Delhi. But had they? The new man in the hot seat, whom BSY affectionately calls “Boma”, is from the Janata Dal. In the 13 years he spent in the BJP, winning plaudits for his ministerial skills, the son of the genial S.R. Bommai, who served as a special aide to the Janata Party’s Chief Minister J.H. Patel, became a trusted member of BSY’s inner circle.
In pushing for the erudite Bommai as his successor, BSY believes he has taken the sting, not just out of his detractors within the BJP ranks, who wanted him out at any cost, but the opposition Congress as well. Bommai’s appointment put paid to the Congress’ perennial charge that no “outsider” has ever prospered in the BJP. In addition, the Congress’ main attack, predicated on, feeding off the anger of the pro-BJP Lingayat community at the forced exit of one of their own, was equally effete. Like Yediyurappa, a Banajiga Lingayat, Bommai too comes from the dominant Lingayat community, albeit from the Sadara sub-sect.
But it’s the third point—that CM Bommai would be a Sadananda Gowda 2.0—that is a telling reference to the time when BSY, who stepped down as Chief Minister when he was jailed for a land scam in 2011, appointed Gowda as his successor but fell out with him when they failed to see eye to eye. Despite the bonhomie between mentor and mentee, few expect the soft-spoken newbie to be able to navigate the demands of his former boss and the bigwigs in Delhi
The Congress has one card as their Trojan horse, the 17 “rebels” from the Congress and the JDS who, in 2019, defected to the BJP, bringing down the unnatural H.D. Kumaraswamy led Congress-JDS coalition arrangement, super-imposed by the Congress high command soon after the 2018 polls. It barely lasted 14 months.
The 2019 Operation Kamala 2, which like the first in 2008 had BSY’s imprimatur, propelled the then 76-year-old to power. The BJP’s top brass could do little when presented with a fait accompli. Will the “rebels”, whom BSY has pandered to with ministries and corporations, be persuaded to rock the boat? With barely 22 months to go for state polls, and zilla panchayat and taluk polls months away, it is possible that the Congress could look to resorting to a reverse “Operation Kamala”. Its own caste calculus that melds the Kuruba community of former Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, alongside the numerically powerful Vokkaligas of ambitious state president D.K. Shivakumar, as well as the OBC-SC-ST, and the sizeable Muslim vote, is not to be scoffed at.
There is one other debilitating factor working against the BJP. Siddaramaiah’s mistaken notion that he could split the 16-17% Lingayat vote bank by pandering to the Panchamsaali Lingayats, a strategy that cost the party at least 18-20 key seats in the last polls notwithstanding, the undercurrent of anger at the government’s inept handling of the pandemic and some in the party trying to pin the blame on minorities could eat into the saffron strongholds in the north and coastal districts.
But instead of shoring up Karnataka’s poor healthcare facilities—which would have also built up BSY —the BJP strategists’ electoral playbook’s sole focus is on finding ways to widen its voter base beyond the Lingayat community. This was evident in the move to appoint Vokkaliga political figures such as the highly educated Dr Aswath Narayan as Deputy Chief Minister to limit the writ of BSY cohort, R. Ashok, in Bengaluru.
So far, none of the plans by BSY’s detractors to box in the old man have paid off. Part of the reason is that they have no-one to pit against his towering Lingayat strongman status. And in mounting a long drawn campaign of vilification against him, they tipped their hand, giving him more than enough time to fine-tune his strategy to counter his critics.
But none of that prepared BSY for what awaited him when he met with the Prime Minister; a meeting, that he thought would be a forum where he could air his grievances. Instead, when BSY insisted that his baiters, such as recent entrant C.P. Yogeeshwar and former comrades in arms Basavana Gouda Yatnal and K.S. Eshswarappa be asked to desist from shaming him publicly at the behest of RSS’ rising star and Karnataka rival B.L. Santhosh, he was reportedly advised to put in his papers and “take rest”.
Those privy to the meet said BSY was only given permission to meet with the Prime Minister after he agreed to submit his resignation in writing, on 10 July, citing poor health. Insiders say he was also presented with evidence of financial malfeasance, and told that, with the state heading for elections, the BJP could not countenance corruption charges against one of its Chief Ministers.
BSY reportedly had come to Delhi to plead for time and negotiate an exit plan. Instead, as Yediyurappa, headed off to the airport to catch a return flight to Bengaluru, he reportedly received a call from Amit Shah. In the meeting with the BJP’s chief strategist, and later with party president J.P. Nadda, both men reinforced PM Modi’s message and stressed the need for a “smooth transition”, as effected in Assam and Uttarakhand.
But the BJP top guns may have failed to take the measure of the man who takes immense pride in how he brought the BJP to power in the only state south of the Vindhyas that the BJP can call its own. In a show of force, 24 hours later, the heads of all the Lingayat muths gathered at his home, drawing an orange line which the Hindutva brigade at least, knew it could not cross. Only reinforcing the message when he had Congress stalwarts from the Panchamsaali Lingayat sect, Shamanur Shivashankarappa and M.B. Patil make personal visits to his home. Left unsaid, Lingayat support for BSY cuts across party lines.
Insiders say that BSY reached out to the RSS leaders in the state, to stop what could have been an overnight sacking by Delhi.
The RSS’ long rope to BSY may have also had something to do with the fact that grassroots workers with their ear to the ground, indicated that if an election were held today, the BJP simply would not win. Hence, the breathing space that was needed. And Pralhad Joshi pulled back, and other possible choices for CM, Murugesh Nirani and Arvind Bellad too.
Yediyurappa’s anger in 2017, when his breakaway Karnataka Janata Paksha singed the saffron party footprint, was always the elephant in the room. When Yediyurappa pushed for Bommai as his successor in the closing minutes of the legislative party meet, the BJP, knowing it couldn’t risk another KJP, was forced to go along. BSY cleverly played on Bommai’s other USP, his Sadara antecedents, while tamping down the unspoken criticism that his close working relationship with the new incumbent would only perpetuate charges of continuing corruption. The Sadara community has an imprint in at least eight to nine districts outside the Bombay Karnataka region, which the Lingayats have traditionally held for the BJP. This includes Tumakura, Chitradurga, Chikkamagalur, Koppal and Gadag among others, which the BJP could tap to widen and grow the saffron base and use to counter the dominant Vokkaliga vote that the Congress and JDS count on.
Vijayendra, in particular is said to be keen to focus on the south of the state from where his father hails. This is where he ran a successful campaign in 2018, against Siddaramaiah, and had lobbied, unsuccessfully, for a ticket to run head to head against the Congress leader’s son, Yatindra in Varuna. He’s hoping that in the 2023 Assembly polls, he will be able to build the BJP base—if not his own—in the south as much as the north.
But the calculated leak of meetings between the JDS leader H.D. Revanna and the BJP top brass was meant to send a message that the party has a back-up plan if BSY and the BJP part ways over the family’s dynastic predilection.
Given the manner in which Yediyurappa has run circles around Delhi, getting 60 of 119 legislators to back his candidate while doing nothing to openly rock the BJP boat, this round goes squarely to the man from Bookanakere.
It’s the next round, when it becomes clear whether Bommai will step up as BSY’s defender or not, that will determine who really has the upper hand.