As BS Yeddyurappa takes baby steps in organising his newpolitical party, the Karnataka Janata Paksha, he could well be looking for theskill sets in a person similar to that of Ananth Kumar, the very man whom heholds, singularly, responsible for breaking his 40-year-old association withthe BJP.
His constant worry, two days before the Haveri rally, wasmanagement of the crowds which came true. These were factors that he never hadto bother about so much when he and Ananth Kumar decided to join hands to buildthe party, way back in 1988.
Now the Yeddyurappa-Ananth Kumar team has broken upvirtually splitting the party and making the first-ever BJP government in theSouth of India a lame-duck one.
What worries the state BJP leadership is the extent to whichhe will cut into their votes and this would certainly make a big difference,just like S Bangarappa’s Karnataka Congress Party did to the Congress. Theleadership has no illusions that it would sit in the Opposition for more thanone reason. The Congress, on the other hand, has yet to put its act togetherand come out to present a united face to the people. The JDS, strong inSouthern Karnataka districts, has trouble on its hands in Hassan, the homedistrict of the Deve Gowda family.
Karnataka has never elected a regional party to power, withthe exception of the united Janata Dal headed by Ramakrishna Hegde and DeveGowda. And, voters have never tolerated any dissident leader who has “troubled”an elected government from functioning. Just like the Congress (in 1994) andthe JDS (in 1989 and 1999). On all the three occasions, each of the partieschanged three chief ministers, just like Yeddyurappa got Sadananda Gowda out ofoffice and could well get the incumbent, Jagdish Shettar, now.
“Yeddyurappa is a very impatient man and very stubborn. Ifonly he had waited, he could have very well won the Shimoga Lok Sabha seat andbecome a minister in 2014 when the NDA comes back to power,” says a close associate,who did not want to be identified.
But, patience and a short-temper have been like adouble-edged sword for Yeddyurappa. When the 2004 elections threw up a hungassembly and the Congress coalition government came into existence, he kept theentire party in the dark and struck a deal with HD Kumaraswamy of the JanataDal (Secular) to become the deputy chief minister in 2006.
This, even as the party patriarch, LK Advani, pointed outhis distrust of HD Deve Gowda and told Karnataka partymen that if a coalitionhas to be formed then it should be led by the BJP as it has more number ofseats than the JDS. The elders in the party succumbed to his wishes becausethey knew he would join the JDS after splitting the BJP. His talks with the JDSpatriarch, HD Deve Gowda, were at an advanced stage.
Yeddyurappa remained his stubborn self. Not very differentfrom his 1975 days when the then Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the Congress had wonseven seats each in the Shikaripur town municipality, Shimoga, and there was alone independent. He made the Independent vice-president and became president.He had practised Operation Kamala, a euphemism to induct electedrepresentatives into the party to gain power, almost 33 years beforeimplementing it at the state level when he led the party to victory in the 2008assembly elections.
The BJP’s ascent to power was to a very large extentattributed to Yeddyurappa for more than one reason. His blitzkrieg tour of thestate was to tell people that he had been denied a chance to become the chiefminister by the JDS as per the arrangement, famously called the T-20 cricketmatch, where Kumaraswamy was to hand over power to him after 20 months.
His major caste group of Lingayats, the dominant communityin North Karnataka, was delighted to find a state-level leader from their owncommunity, 28 years after Veerendra Patil was removed summarily from the chiefministership by Rajiv Gandhi. His outpouring against the JDS’s father-son duo,perhaps, was also triggered by the denial of the assembly ticket by Deve Gowdain the then united Janata Party in 1978.
He got elected to the assembly for the first time in 1983 ona BJP ticket and never failed to highlight the problems of the farmingcommunity, not very different from what Deve Gowda did. His similarity withDeve Gowda’s style of functioning was evident in his control over hisdepartments. But, unlike Deve Gowda, he did not hesitate to brazenly breakrules, despite good and written advice from bureaucrats, culminating in hisdoing the rounds of courts in land and mining scams.
Yeddyurappa’s passion to get what he wanted has, more orless, worked for him and will be one of the focal points in the 2013 assemblyelections. He appears to still enjoy the support of the Lingayat community,particularly in the rural areas. His public meetings have attracted people fromother sections of society as well. His effort has been to get the caste axis ofLingayats “ some sections of the OBCs “ the Left sect of the Scheduled Castesand Muslims.
What worries the state BJP leadership is the extent to whichhe will cut into their votes and this would certainly make a big difference,just like S Bangarappa’s Karnataka Congress Party did to the Congress. Theleadership has no illusions that it would sit in the Opposition for more thanone reason. The Congress, on the other hand, has yet to put its act togetherand come out to present a united face to the people. The JDS, strong inSouthern Karnataka districts, has trouble on its hands in Hassan, the home districtof the Deve Gowda family.
Karnataka has never elected a regional party to power, withthe exception of the united Janata Dal headed by Ramakrishna Hegde and DeveGowda. And, voters have never tolerated any dissident leader who has “troubled”an elected government from functioning. Just like the Congress (in 1994) andthe JDS (in 1989 and 1999). On all the three occasions, each of the partieschanged three chief ministers, just like Yeddyurappa got Sadananda Gowda out ofoffice and could well get the incumbent, Jagdish Shettar, now.
