Finding BSY's successor may be a tough challenge for BJP in Karnataka

Lingayats' support for BSY is a telltale sign that appointing a new Karnataka CM will be problematic for the BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prides itself on accomplishing generational leadership transitions fairly seamlessly, almost always. Stalwarts, such as Kalyan Singh, Shanta Kumar, and Keshubhai Patel — who became synonymous with an ideological strain or a state or a dominant caste and were regarded as invincible in their time — were shipped out once the exigency of demography and the challenges of the future demanded a qualitatively different leadership calibre.  The changeover was cutthroat but the BJP coped with the fallout.

However, B S Yediyurappa, Karnataka chief minister, is another kettle of fish. He will be 80 when the state next votes in 2023, and, therefore, above the closing year of 75 which Prime Minister Narendra Modi set for those who might hold constitutional offices. The BJP’s past efforts to put in place a succession place in Bengaluru came unwrapped because either the Delhi brass got cold feet at the political repercussions that Yediyurappa’s displacement might have (the party lost the 2013 Assembly polls after Yediyurappa quit and launched his party, the Karnataka Janata Paksha) or the CM mobilised support from influential quarters of his Lingayat community to save his job. “Caste alone should no longer be a consideration. Loyalty, conduct, and character are important attributes to take forward the BJP and meet expectations of every section,” emphasised a Karnataka party leader.

Last week, Yediyurappa met Modi and reportedly offered to step down. Originally, Yediyurappa was keen to convey his mind to the PM through an emissary from Bengaluru who has Delhi’s ears but changed his mind. The word was the CM would demit office on July 26, when he completes two years of his current tenure.  The script was Yediyurappa would announce his exit at a legislature party meeting on Monday. However, the meeting has since been called off.  

The reports of Yediyurappa’s imminent departure threw the cat among the pigeons and indicated that the changeover, if it happened, would be problematic. If anything, the ensuing developments demonstrated the centrality of caste in the Karnataka BJP and were far removed from the millennial scenario that the younger state leader envisioned. “Karnataka politics gets its adrenaline rush from caste,” observed a Bengaluru political observer.

The Lingayats are to the Karnataka BJP what the Patels of Gujarat once were, the spine buttressing the party. They are said to constitute 17 per cent of the population and have a decisive vote in nearly 100 of the 224 Assembly seats. In a 224-member house, there are 58 Lingayat legislators and 22 in the 75-member legislative council, figures that underline their political dominance in a BJP regime. Even with a Lingayat as the CM, of Yediyurappa’s three deputy CMs, one — Laxman Sangappa Savadi — is also from the same community. Yediyurappa attempted a social balance of sorts by appointing a Vokkaliga, C N Ashwath Narayan, and a Dalit, Govind Karajoli, as the other deputies. A third of the 33 ministers are Lingayats.

Expectedly, the community — the principal beneficiary of government grants to its temples and mathas (monasteries) under Yediyurappa who is accused of obliterating the distinction between religion and the state — rallied around him. The support was so intense and widespread that two senior Lingayat  Congress leaders of north Karnataka — M B Patil and Shamanur Shivashankarappa — publicly expressed solidarity with the CM. Shivashankarappa, national president of the All India Veerashaiva (the topmost Lingayat sub-caste) Mahasabha, warned the BJP of adverse consequences if Yediyurappa was eased out. An embarrassed Congress distanced itself from the veterans but Patil said: “The way a senior leader like him has been mistreated, cornered, and made helpless has demoralised our community.” Was the comradeship a throwback to 1990, when the Congress had unceremoniously sacked its Lingayat CM Veerendra Patil after he suffered a stroke and lost the community’s votes for time to come? Patil’s explanation was: “There’s a difference. Veerendra Patil was paralysed and couldn’t have functioned. Yediyurappa is fit as a fiddle.”  

Patil added before the BJP’s Delhi brass said anything, the Karnataka contingent resorted to skulduggery and intrigues against Yediyurappa as if to anticipate his dismissal. In a leaked audiotape, Nalin Kateel, Dakshina Kannada MP and Karnataka BJP president, was allegedly heard saying in Tulu, his first language, that the “new” CM would come from Delhi and ministers K S Eshwarappa and Jagadish Shettar (who normally might have been in the reckoning) would be shown the exit way. Kateel denied the voice was his and asked Yediyurappa to investigate the tape.      

Ironically, the BJP’s own Lingayats are the spearhead of the anti-Yediyurappa campaign that gained traction after the CM met Modi. Among the Lingayat big leaguers are B P Yatnal, Murugesh Nirani, Arvind Bellad, V Somanna, Shashikala Jolle, and Savadi. H Vishwanath, a legislative council member, stated: “We want Yediyurappa to step down gracefully. We quit the Congress and the JD-S (Janata Dal-Secular) two years ago to make him the CM. He has betrayed some of us.”    

The questions are, will the old warhorse relinquish his position, more so because he hasn’t received a firm assurance that his son, B Y Vijayendra, will be “looked after” by the BJP? Vijayendra, who holds an organisational position in the state BJP, has been accused of being a “parallel power centre” and the root cause of the resentment against his father. Who will replace Yediyurappa, a Lingayat, or a leader from another community?

An old BJP hand said: “It is not necessary to have a Lingayat. The person should be young and clean with an inclusive appeal, so I think the leaders should think out-of-the-box, break the Lingayat-Vokkaliga stranglehold and bring a Dalit, an Adivasi, or someone from a backward caste.”