The rehabilitation of Yediyurappa to the BJP’s parliamentary board, the highest decision-making body of the party, was essentially damage control. Today, the hardline approach is championed by the likes of BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel, CT Ravi, Tejasvi Surya et al who collectively owe their allegiance to Santhosh.Īlas, the limitations of employing the approach – at least in the short term – have dawned on the BJP now. In fact, the BJP has had to rely heavily on the Lingayats in north and central Karnataka to come to power in the state. However, this strategy had not paid dividends elsewhere in the state. As far back as 1968, the Jana Sangh had captured the Udupi municipality, led by VS Acharya, who later went on to serve as Home minister under Yediyurappa. Coastal Karnataka has been a communal hotbed for decades, and the BJP’s predecessor, the Jana Sangh, first made its mark here.
True, this model is not something entirely alien to Karnataka politics. Bommai’s reign saw Karnataka become a Hindutva laboratory of sorts: Issues such as Halal meat, Hijab, Tipu Sultan have all been raked up in the process, pitting the Hindu majority against the 13 percent Muslims. However, while his status as a Brahmin might earn Santhosh brownie points within the RSS, the same becomes a liability in the electoral arena, as Brahmins make up less than 3 percent of Karnataka’s population.īesides, Bommai has also failed to emerge as a leader in his own right during his short term. It may be remembered that Modi was named Gujarat CM in 2001, when he held the same charge.
Having been made general secretary of the Karnataka BJP in 2006, Santhosh went on to become national joint secretary – in-charge of southern states – in 2014, before succeeding Ram Lal as general secretary (organisation) in 2019. And he has been going about his ambition very much like a certain Narendra Modi, once upon a time in Gujarat. Now, Santhosh has never hidden his chief ministerial ambitions in the past. The question becomes important because the BJP hasn’t projected Bommai as its chief ministerial candidate, as yet.įor all practical purposes, Bommai is keeping the seat warm for BL Santhosh, BJP’s general secretary (organisation), deputed from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The million dollar question then is who would be named chief minister if the BJP were to secure a majority, defying all odds. Bommai’s elevation was, at the most, a signal to the Lingayats to stay put with the BJP after Yediyurappa’s stepping down. In any case, Bommai wasn’t the BJP’s first choice to succeed Yediyurappa. And yet, Bommai is seen to be a short-term option today. And hence Yediyurappa’s stepping down and Bommai’s takeover. However, at some point, the BJP had to plan for the future. So it didn’t come as a surprise that the BJP made an exemption for Yediyurappa to become CM, even after he crossed the party’s unofficial retirement age of 75. In the last three decades, the saffron party’s fortunes in Karnataka have closely mirrored that of Yediyurappa, its tallest leader in the state. The Congress-JD (S) alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election came as a blessing in disguise to the BJP to gain a foothold in the region. One of the major reasons for the BJP’s stunting in the state has been its inability to cater to the Vokkaligas in the Old Mysuru region. The dependence on an ageing Yediyurappa aside, the BJP needed to grow out of the Lingayat stranglehold to become a pan-Karnataka party. It was deemed necessary on account of the BJP’s failure to register an absolute majority in the Karnataka assembly elections in so many attempts. The prototype essentially involves pursuing an aggressive brand of the BJP’s core Hindutva ideology, in place of the social engineering it had followed until then. Yediyurappa was replaced with protégé Basavaraj Bommai in 2021 and, in a marked shift in strategy, the saffron party sought to replicate its tried-and-tested Hindutva prototype in the southern state. The lessons drawn from the 2019 general elections in Karnataka have set the BJP’s agenda down the line. The BJP interpreted the results as a cue for engineering defections, thus leading to the installation of a BJP government headed by BS Yediyurappa. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went on to trounce the coalition, winning 26 of the 28 seats, and the Congress and the JD (S) had to settle for a seat apiece. The 2019 Lok Sabha elections saw the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) contesting in an alliance in Karnataka, with the two parties running a coalition government in the state back then.
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