When Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan placed the flower bouquet before Basavaraj Bommai at the state BJP’s core committee meeting in Bengaluru on July 27, Tuesday evening, it signalled that the new Karnataka Chief Minister had been chosen. And when the security outside Bommai’s house was scaled up at 5.30 pm, the speculation over who would succeed Yediyurappa ended.
The stamp of Raja Huli (Tiger King) – as Yediyurappa is referred to by his supporters – was evident in the entire process of choosing his successor. Even at the brief BJP legislators’ meeting on Tuesday evening to announce the new CM’s name and at Bommai’s swearing-in function at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday, July 28, slogans of ‘Raja Huli ki jai’ rent the air.
According to BJP sources, the announcement of the new CM was nothing less than the suspense that prevails during the counting of votes when the victory margin between the contestants is narrow. It’s said that Pradhan along with Karnataka in-charge Arun Singh and party functionary Kishan Reddy had come with a different brief. The candidate was a Lingayat and the probable toppers were MLA Arvind Bellad, minister Murugesh Nirani, and Bommai too.
“The observers went to Yediyurappa’s house where during the discussions the latter was firm that unless his choice was put in the saddle, he would not propose the name. His choice was Bommai and the observers had to drop whatever brief they had come to discuss,” sources said.
Sources recalled that Yediyurappa has ensured on both the occasions – in 2011, when he was asked to quit by the high command following the indictment in the Lokayukta’s report on illegal mining, and in 2012, the party had to choose new CMs – that he had the last word. In the 2011 BJP legislators’ meeting, Yediyurappa had pitched former Union minister DV Sadananda Gowda as his candidate against leaders late HN Ananth Kumar and KS Eshwarappa’s nominee Jagadish Shetter. But a year later when Gowda started to come out of Yediyurappa’s shadow, the latter got him replaced with Jagadish Shettar.
Though Bommai nursed ambitions of becoming the CM as he was instrumental in getting Yediyurappa back in the BJP in 2014, he is not a candidate bred in the Sangh Parivar stables. A close associate of Yediyurappa, he did not follow the latter when he quit the BJP to form the Karnataka Janata Paksha.
Like his father, former Chief Minister SR Bommai, who was a follower of MN Roy, founding member of the Communist Party of India, junior Bommai did not subscribe to the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva plank. He was one of the key speakers at the AHINDA rally founded by former CM Siddaramaiah.
Heading the Janata Dal(U) after the Janata Parivar split, Bommai came in contact with Samata Party founder George Fernandes, which helped him to reach BJP leaders. With the JD(U) becoming redundant, Bommai hitched onto the BJP bandwagon, and in 2008 contested from Shiggaon in Haveri, the birthplace of his father.
Bommai’s elevation as CM is also a sort of victory for the Lingayat sub-sect Sadar to which he belongs. Sadar Lingayats are found in Chitradurga, Davanagere, Dharwad and Shivamogga districts. In the present legislative Assembly of the nearly 40 Lingayat MLAs, 10 are from the Sadar sub-sect.
The Sirigere mutt representing the Sadar Lingayats made history when it defeated former CM S Nijalingappa from the Hosadurga constituency in Chitradurga district in the ‘60s. Nijalingappa, who represented the Banajiga sub-sect, had differences with the Sirigere mutt head. In the Assembly elections, the mutt head fielded a Kuruba candidate, who was a novice, against Nijalingappa and got him defeated. Later, Nijalingappa contested from Bagalkot by getting one of his loyalist MLAs to vacate the seat.
Party sources said while the BJP has managed to placate the Lingayat community by making Bommai the CM, it does not want the new government to be a 2.0 version of Yediyurappa’s tenure, which was dogged by corruption and lack of coordination among the ministers.
Naheed Ataulla is a journalist who has covered Karnataka politics for over two decades, and is a former Political Editor of The Times of India. Views expressed are the author’s own.