Yeddyurappa, a fiery leader believed to be the main source of the Lingayats’ support for the BJP, has been criss-crossing the state to campaign for the party.
Shikaripura: Former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, the BJP’s candidate for the top post this assembly election, says he has already invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his oath-taking ceremony as CM on 17 May.
“We will get 130 (of 224) seats and I have even invited Prime Minister Modiji to come to Karnataka when I am sworn in as chief minister,” Yeddyurappa said.
ThePrint caught up with the satrap at his house in Shikaripura in the state’s south, just as he was leaving for north Karnataka to campaign with BJP president Amit Shah for party colleague B. Sriramulu in Badami. Sriramulu is up against chief minister Siddaramaiah.
There’s talk in BJP circles that Sriramulu may be appointed deputy chief minister if the party wins. However, Yeddyurappa dismissed the reports even as he acknowledged Sriramulu’s importance to the party. “Sriramulu is the tallest leader in his community (Valmiki-Nayakas, ST). Because of him we will win 20 to 25 seats. We have not decided about any post (of deputy chief ministership) for him yet,” he said.
Yeddyurappa, a fiery leader believed to be the main source of the Lingayats’ support for the BJP, has been criss-crossing the state to campaign for the party. As a result, he has spent hardly any time in his own constituency, Shikaripura.
But then, Shikaripura is one of those constituencies where campaigns don’t serve a purpose. For opponents, it would likely be a futile exercise, and locals say its seven-time representative Yeddyurappa doesn’t really need to.
“He has done a lot for us, we will automatically vote for him,” said Halappa, a local.
BSY, as Yeddyurappa is often called, has dominated the constituency since 1983, losing just once in 1999. Even during his brief split from the BJP, at the head of the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) between 2012 and 2014, he retained the seat. After he returned to the BJP and entered Parliament as Shimoga MP, his son B.Y. Raghavendra won the Shikaripura bypoll.
Congress on his radar
As he prepared to board a special flight for Badami, Yeddyurappa said one of his first decisions as chief minister would be to “reopen all the complaints of corruption filed against Siddaramaiah and other Congress leaders rejected by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB)”.
He added that he would also “shut down the ACB (anti-corruption bureau) and give more teeth to the Lokayukta”.
The strengthening of the Lokayukta, or anti-corruption ombudsman, is something the Congress has promised too. The institution, while former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde held the chair, put BSY on a perilous pitch in 2011 when it named him in a multi-crore mining scam in the state along with the Reddy brothers and Sriramulu.
It was what precipitated BSY’s split with the BJP – as it sought to distance itself from the controversy, the party asked the chief minister to resign and installed D.V. Sadananda Gowda. Subsequently, Sriramulu (BSR Congress) and BSY both formed their own parties, eating into the BJP’s vote share in the 2013 assembly election. By 2014, however, both were back with the BJP, and the party won 19 of the state’s 28 parliamentary seats that year.
Since then, Yeddyurappa has described quitting the BJP as a “mistake”.
The corruption taint
Corruption has emerged as the dominant poll plank of both the Congress and the BJP, with the parties also accusing each other of fielding “tainted” candidates.
Seven relatives and associates of mining baron G. Janardhan Reddy, including Sriramulu, are in the fray this time on BJP tickets, with the opposition criticising the decision to field BSY as CM candidate.
Yeddyurappa, who spent 22 days in prison in connection with the Hegde report, has been, particularly angry with the Congress’ description of him as a “jail bird”.
In fact, at a meet-the-press programme of the Press Club of Bangalore, Yeddyurappa asked “Why should he (Siddaramaiah) repeatedly say that I have gone to jail?”
Fathers & sons
As BSY left for Badami, his son and incumbent MLA B.Y. Raghavendra held the fort in Shikaripura, holding a road show for his father.
The former MP’s brother, B.Y. Vijayendra, was initially believed to be in the running too, against Siddaramaiah’s son Yathindra in Varuna. He had campaigned extensively in the constituency, but the BJP held on to its candidate choice for the seat until the last day.
Keen to target the Congress on dynasty politics, the BJP reportedly did not want to attract similar charges from the opposition. Consequently, there was said to be some anger in the top leadership following reports that BSY had allowed Vijayendra to file his nomination papers without their sanction on the deadline eve, and the former chief minister eventually asked his son to abstain from contesting altogether. His supporters had greeted the news with displeasure.
At the road show, Raghavendra, who is not in the fray either, was found reassuring voters that his father would “provide an able and stable government”.
Asked if, in the event of a hung assembly, the BJP would go for an alliance with former partner JD(S), Yeddyurappa was ambivalent.
“As of now, no such decision has been taken,” he said.
Karnataka votes 12 May, and results are scheduled for 15 May.