Karnataka has a unique place in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) political and organisational system. Left to itself, the Karnataka BJP would love to detach itself from the central party apparatus and declare itself a sovereign republic. Obviously it cannot because the central BJP is too invested in Karnataka to countenance such a thought. Karnataka is the only southern state the BJP confidently calls its own. The trouble is the New Delhi bosses are perennially at a loss as to how to handle the Karnataka leaders, specifically Chief Minister (CM) B S Yediyurappa, and the ring of dissidents around him.
“New