Man-to-man marking of rival party candidates, accommodating ‘outsiders’, continuing with the heavy reliance on Lingayat votes and introducing many new faces-the BJP appears to have tried to cover all the bases while drafting its first list of 189 candidates for next month’s elections to the 224-member Karnataka assembly. The first list of candidates, which has 52 new faces, was announced on April 11, followed by a second list of 23 candidates the next day.
While the first list has some 52 candidates from the Lingayat community, the BJP has also strived to placate former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa (BSY) by allowing his younger son B.Y. Vijayendra to inherit BSY’s bastion of Shikaripura. BSY achieved this despite continuous opposition from party leaders in Karnataka. BSY is perhaps the most influential political leader from the Lingayat community, which forms roughly 17 per cent of the state electorate and dominates the politics of northern Karnataka. The outgoing assembly has 54 MLAs from the community, of whom 37 belong to the BJP.
While replacing BSY as chief minister in 2021, the BJP had continued with a Lingayat leadership and made Basavaraj Bommai the CM. However, the party leadership came to the view that Bommai wasn’t able to win over the community leaders, who continued to nurse the grudge that BSY had been removed from the top post. BJP leaders had, last September, roped BSY into the party’s top decision-making body and later allowed him to lead the assembly election campaign. The BJP government faces huge anti-incumbency and allegations of corruption, and Bommai is not seen to have emerged as a strong regional leader of the party.
The first list of candidates was drawn after marathon meetings of the BJP parliamentary board over four days. Consensus was achieved on fielding new faces and retiring some very senior leaders, such as former state unit chief K.S. Eshwarappa (74 years old) and former CM Jagadish Shettar (67), who are likely to be given organisational duties. Former CMs Yediyurappa and D.V. Sadananda Gowda are already exiting electoral politics.
Even while the process of selecting candidates was on, sitting MLAs Halady Srinivas Shetty of Kundapura and S.A. Ravindranath of Davanagere North withdrew from the electoral fray by announcing their retirement.
While some of them are dynasts, most of the 52 first-timers have been chosen from the among BJP cadre. A decision was taken to allow certain existing dynasties in the state BJP unit to continue while discouraging the emergence of new ones.
Till April 9, when the BJP had shortlisted 175 candidates, consensus had eluded on whether to give tickets to dynasts (relatives of party leaders). B.Y. Vijayendra, though, had made the cut. According to party insiders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi preferred scouting for new talent than fielding the relatives of leaders. Yediyurappa insisted on a ticket being given to his son from Shikaripura-the decision was left to Modi.
BJP leaders also took the PM’s help to decide on the fate of the powerful Katti family from north Karnataka. Like in the case of Vijayendra, the BJP relaxed its ‘no dynasty’ norm here too, making Nikhil Katti, the son of deceased Hukkeri MLA Umesh Katti, has been given a ticket from his father’s seat while uncle Ramesh Katti will contest from the adjacent Chikkodi-Sadalga constituency. In the 2018 assembly poll, the BJP’s Annasaheb Jolle had contested from the Chikkodi-Sadalga seat and lost, but went on to win the Chikkodi Lok Sabha seat. His wife Shashikala Jolle, a minister in the outgoing state government, is continuing her electoral quest from Nippani, from where she is a two-time MLA. The BJP leadership held the view that the Katti family might draw ‘sympathy’ votes’ in the name of Umesh Katti. The party replaced controversial environment minister Anand Prithviraj Singh with son Siddarth Singh from their bastion of Vijayanagara
The BJP had to work hard to convince senior ministers to contest against two Congress chief ministerial aspirants-accordingly, R. Ashoka, a Vokkaliga leader, will take on D.K. Shivakumar in Kanakapura while V. Somanna, a Lingayat leader, has been fielded against Siddaramaiah from Varuna. The two BJP candidates were reluctant to give up their traditional bastions, so were allowed to contest from two seats each. “Let them try and checkmate us,” Shivakumar said in Bengaluru on April 12. “Politics is not a football game. It’s a chess game.”
The BJP also gave tickets to turncoats who had joined the party and ensured the fall of the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led Janata Dal (S)-Congress government in 2019, bringing BSY back in power. Prominent among them is former deputy CM Laxman Savadi. Umesh Jadhav, who had in 2019 switched from the Congress to defeat Mallikarjun Kharge in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha seat, got his son Avinash Jadhav fielded from his traditional Chincholi seat.
Thirteen of those who helped the BJP come to power following their defection in 2019 have got back their seats. This includes nine ministers-M.T.B. Nagaraj, S.T. Somashekar, Dr K. Sudhakar, B.A. Basavaraj, B.C. Patil, Shivaram Hebbar, K. Gopalaiah, N. Munirathna and K.C. Narayana Gowda. Others from this group are Ramesh Jarkiholi, a political heavyweight from Gokak in Belagavi and a former minister; his close associate Mahesh Kumathalli; another former minister Shrimant Patil; and Pratapgouda Patil.
However, a backlash came from others who were overlooked, including Shettar and Savadi. Shettar, who has won the Hubli-Dharwad (Central) seat since 1994, didn’t hide his disappointment, saying this was no way to treat a senior leader. Meanwhile, Savadi, currently a member of the legislative council, said he would quit the party. Elsewhere, in Dakshina Kannada, six-time MLA and sitting minister S. Angara, who did not get the ticket for the Sullia seat, announced he was retiring from politics and that he would not campaign for the party. Others seniors such as Sogadu Shivanna of Tumkur, and two sitting legislators, M.P. Kumaraswamy (Mudigere) and Nehru Olekar (Haveri), have announced their resignations from the party.
On April 12, the BJP’s national youth wing president Tejasvi Surya said the party has ensured that more youngsters were given an opportunity, pointing to local Yuva Morcha leaders Thammesh Gowda and Dhiraj Muniraju, who got tickets from Byatarayanapura and Doddaballapura respectively.
This report is auto-generated . SPO INDIA holds no responsibility for its content.
