New Delhi: When BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal asked former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai not to entertain Congress leaders and their ‘cries’ to be rescued, the gloves were officially off and the infighting within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka spilled out into the open.
The two leaders taking jibes at each other fuels the existing allegations of ‘adjustment politics’ made by several BJP leaders after the 10 May assembly election in which the Congress routed the Basavaraj Bommai government. Since then, animosity within the BJP has increased as the party is yet to name a new state president as well as a leader of the opposition ahead of the 3 July legislature session.
“Siddaramaiah has said that he will have no contact with any opposition leaders. Even we should maintain this and say that we will not entertain both Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar. Only then will our party survive. If we welcome them when they come (to our homes), then it will affect our workers,” Yatnal said Sunday addressing BJP workers at Chikkodi in Belagavi.
The Vijayapura MLA was referring to Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar’s visit to Bommai’s home Friday which Yatnal said was anything but a ‘courtesy visit’.
Yatnal said that Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are engaged in a war of sorts for dominance and they will try to use the BJP to their advantage.
The BJP in Karnataka has seen its differences grow under Bommai who replaced B.S. Yediyurappa as the CM in July 2021. After the rout in May which saw its tally drop to 66 seats from 104 in 2018, the party is desperately trying to bring back some semblance of unity in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
But it has been a difficult proposition as BJP leaders spare no opportunity to trade charges, leveling allegations against their own top brass in Karnataka. Yatnal has been a vocal critic of Bommai and Yediyurappa in the past. He and Bommai are in the race for the role of opposition leader from the BJP.
“In politics, under no circumstances will we compromise nor have we (in the past). We cannot stop anyone from coming home. It is the culture of Karnataka. But we will not compromise anywhere Goudare (Basanagouda). We are with you, don’t spoil your head over this,” Bommai hit back at the event.
Also Read: Karnataka govt run from 10 Janpath? Congress-BJP row over Surjewala’s presence at ‘official meeting’
‘No compromise’
Senior BJP leaders like C.T. Ravi and Pratap Simha have been at the forefront of making allegations against their own seniors over ‘adjustment politics’, referring to the compromises made by some of their ilk to retain influence in the state.
“A few senior BJP leaders may not talk against Siddaramaiah but our workers will never engage and entertain adjustment politics,” Simha told reporters last week.
Though it remains unclear who he targeted, the tone is consistent with other leaders like Ravi, the BJP national general secretary who could not retain his stronghold Chikmagalur this time.
Simha had gone as far to say that the BJP lost out in the Karnataka election because of ‘adjustment politics’.
In Karnataka’s volatile political climate, leaders like Siddaramaiah, Yediyurappa and H.D. Deve are some key players who have the ability to stitch up local coalitions, political analysts say.
Irrespective of which party comes to power, they say, these three leaders have maintained good ‘working relations’ with their counterparts across the aisle, helping them remain relevant and continue to have some sway and say in policy matters. The analysts refer to the trio as ‘local coalition builders’.
In 2013, there were allegations that Siddaramaiah took the help of Yediyurappa to defeat G. Parameshwara in Kortagere as the latter’s win would have made it hard for the Congress stalwart to become the chief minister for the first time.
There are also allegations that Siddaramaiah engineered defections from the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in 2019 to get back at Deve Gowda. The Congress state president is said to have reiterated this when demanding the CM’s chair in Karnataka.
Similarly, a huge uproar erupted when Bommai visited the home of Deve Gowda in July 2021, soon after he took over as CM, as it was seen to be an extension of ‘adjustment politics’.
“There have always been politicians who have done adjustment politics and there are those who have never done it. Typically, people who do ‘adjustment politics’ never lose an election and those who don’t, will do much better for credibility within the party,” Narendar Pani, a Bengaluru-based political analyst and faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), told ThePrint.
The analyst added that those who were into such a brand of politics also built a vociferous image against the same practice to maintain credibility as well as to seek help for winning elections.
(Edited by Tony Rai)