Karnataka result: Spotlight on Yeddyurappa, Kumaraswamy, Governor Vajubhai

Yeddyurappa might have been just another influential BJP MLA, had a dispute not broken out in the BJP between Ananth Kumar and Dhananjaya Kumar

BS Yeddyurappa: Lingayat strongman in race for the chair

Yeddyurappa began his political life as a secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Shikaripura. He then became the taluka president of the Jana Sangh and, later, the president of the town municipality of Shikaripura. He was arrested during the emergency and again in 1983. He contested and won the Shikaripura Assembly seat, which he has represented half-a-dozen times since.

He might have been just another influential BJP MLA, had a dispute not broken out in the BJP between Ananth Kumar and Dhananjaya Kumar. They were rival upper castes. But in Yeddyurappa, the entire Lingayat community saw a new leader they had not had since Veerendra Patil. And the lure of getting a foothold in a state in the south was strong. Moreover, this was not just urban centres - the party saw its rural base growing. So they gave in to Yeddyurappa. No one said a word, for instance, when for the first time in the history of Karnataka, a bequest for a Lingayat Mutt was made in the state Budget. 

And Yedyurappa's bounty knew no bounds after the 2008 Assembly election, which the BJP swept. He doled out contracts, offered ministerships and denotified land with an open hand. The Karnataka Lokayukta finally caught up with him. Yeddyurappa confessed that an illegal iron ore export racket that involved some of his ministers had flourished under his watch. But the Lokayukta also charged him with denotifying government land for his sons Raghavendra and Vijayendra. He was arrested in October 2011 and sent to jail. Later, he got bail, and has since been acquitted.

Obviously he could not continue to be chief minister when he had been sent to jail. He then said Sadanand Gowda should be made chief minister. A Vokkaliga but from a small sub-caste, Yeddyurappa thought Gowda would be biddable - he had no mass base (he had to be elected to the Legislative Council because no one would vacate their Assembly seat for him); he would be the person through whom Yeddyurappa could manipulate his legal cases.

But Gowda proved to be his own man. So when Yeddyurappa got bail and wanted his old job back, Gowda said he would not move. Yeddyurappa mounted another rebellion. Later, he felt he had had enough of the BJP and in 2012 announced he was walking out of the BJP to form his own party, the Karnataka Janata Paksha. He merged the KJP back into the BJP in 2014. In 2017, he was named the BJP's chief ministerial candidate by party president Amit Shah.

HD Kumaraswamy

HD Kumaraswamy: Farmer’s son who differed with BSY

Mamata Banerjee must be given a reward for the most accurate political prophecy. A few hours before polling was about to start on May 12, she told a Bengali TV channel: “I think there will be a hung situation in Karnataka with Congress and BJP both getting seats that are comparable. The role of HD Deve Gowda will become crucial. He can win 28-30 seats. I think his son will become the next chief minister.”

So who is ‘his son’?

It was October 2007 and Rajnath Singh was president of the BJP. H D Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal Secular (JDS) with 56 members in the Legislative Assembly did not have the numbers to form a government. Deve Gowda was forced to do a deal with the devil - the BJP that had 79 MLAs in a House of 224. The arrangement was that Deve Gowda's son H D Kumaraswamy would rule for two-and-a-half years, and then yield the chief ministership to the BJP’s B S Yeddyurappa, the then deputy chief minister. Kumaraswamy worked hard during his chief ministership: he tried to create a base through 2006, and local newspapers reported that he went to a Dalit colony near Mysore and stayed at the house of an “untouchable”. 

But, when the time came for Kumaraswamy to hand over the mantle to Yeddyurappa, he changed his mind. The BJP withdrew support to the government. Now Deve Gowda turned to the Congress for help. But people like Siddaramaiah - they had abandoned Deve Gowda and did not want the Congress to have any dealings with him — and others demurred. Instead, they backed a rebellion by one of Deve Gowda's lieutenants MP Prakash. But the Congress dithered and lost valuable time. Finally, in 2007, the Kumaraswamy government fell and President's rule was imposed.

What was at the heart of the differences between Kumaraswamy and Yeddyurappa? Intense mutual antagonism, not only because the two belong to polar different castes — Kumaraswamy is a Vokkaliga, Yeddyurappa is a Lingayat — but also because neither wanted to take orders from the other. For instance, Yeddyurappa claimed that the idea of cards for those below the poverty line and subsidised bicycles to these cardholders was his idea. Kumaraswamy said it was actually his idea, but when he mooted it, it was turned down by Yeddyurappa.

In short, it isn’t easy to work with Kumaraswamy, especially when the BJP is watching every move beady-eyed. Karnataka is in for an extremely fraught five years.

Vajubhai Vala

Vajubhai Vala: Governor who rose above party lines

Vajubhai Vala, a former RSS man and considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is set to play a crucial role in the Karnataka political scene after the Assembly election results were declared on Tuesday. 

Vala, twice state president of the Gujarat BJP, who also served as Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly between 2012 and 2014, was appointed Governor of Karnataka in 2014 after the BJP came to power at the Centre. 

He had famously vacated his Assembly seat (Rajkot -II) for Modi when the latter was contesting his first state election in Gujarat in 2001. A Rajput OBC by caste, Vala, is revered in the political circles of Gujarat as a tall leader in the Saurashtra region. He played a crucial role in cementing the BJP's position in the Patidar-dominated belt. It was Vala who literally turned Rajkot into a 'safe seat' for the BJP. The current chief minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani, too, represents that constituency. 

Vala holds the record of presenting the Budget in the Gujarat Assembly 18 times as he served as finance minister for Gujarat for nine years and held other portfolios between 1998 and 2012. He started out from the Jan Sangh, the BJP's predecessor, and had grown close to Keshubhai Patel, then a powerful BJP leader in Gujarat. He was also imprisoned for eleven months during the Emergency. He served as the mayor of Rajkot Municipal Corporation in the 1990s. 

“As Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly, Vala was largely neutral and rose above party lines when dealing with MLAs on the floor of the House. His witty remarks and digs at MLAs kept the House in splits. He is undoubtedly one of the most popular speakers in the Gujarat Assembly,” said a Congress leader in Gujarat.