Three years ago,when Jagadish Shettar was dumped by the Reddy brothers of Bellary after being used as the caste pivot in an attempt to dethrone Lingayat leader B S Yeddyurappa from the Karnataka chief ministers post,one of Shettars close relative said in exasperation,No [expletive is ever going to make him chief minister. Eventually,though,the BJP has done that. The Reddy brothers of Bellary,now on trial for running a mining mafia,had led Shettar down the garden path in October 2009,promising to make him chief minister in the coup they were attempting but then dumped him after some of their own demands were met by the BJP. Since May 2008,when he had been forced into the relatively low-profile position of Assembly Speaker by his friend-turned-foe Yeddyurappa after the BJPs election victory,Shettar had been smarting at his isolation and therefore grabbed the Reddys offer. Shettar then told some of his supporters,What I did not get when I wanted it [the chief ministers post is now seeking me out. This was shortly before the Reddys ditched him. Last August,when Yeddyurappa was finally forced to quit amid charges of corruption,Shettar,the other longstanding Lingayat leader in the BJP 42 of its 121 MLAs belong to that community was once again the first choice to be the new chief minister. That he did not get it was because Yeddyurappa blocked it. Fearing that the emergence of another Lingayat leader would threaten his standing as the communitys number one in the BJP,Yeddyurappa successfully propped up his old friend D V Sadananda Gowda,a Vokkaliga leader,for the position. Shettars equations with BJP national leader H N Ananth Kumar,Yeddyurappas bitter foe,too went against him. On Thursday,when he takes oath as the third chief minister of the first BJP government in Karnataka,what will be important to Shettar,his aides say,is that he has finally got there; that it will be only a one-year tenure is irrelevant. The irony of it all is that the man who decided to make him chief minister this time again to assert his own position as the number one Lingayat leader in Karnataka is Yeddyurappa himself. The story goes that Shettar was twice bitten,thrice shy about taking up Yeddyurappas proposal last month to make him chief minister if he was willing to be the face of a Lingayat-led rebellion against Gowda. Shettars hesitancy was evident when he sent his resignation as rural development minister to Gowda without going personally to meet the chief minister. Ultimately,he was forced to do so when Gowda refused to accept it. Assurances by Yeddyurappa that he would be backed all the way,and hints that this may be his last chance to become chief minister,are believed to have eventually convinced Shettar. Soft-spoken,easygoing and sometimes considered too laid-back to make things happen on his own some critics say his wife is more ambitious than he is Shettar,56,has a long lineage in the RSS and the Jan Sangh setup in Karnataka that has evolved into the BJP. His uncle Sadashiv Shettar was the first Jan Sangh member of the Karnataka Assembly,elected from Hubli in 1967,and his father S S Shettar was the first Jan Sangh mayor of Hubli. Shettar hails and is a three-time MLA from Hubli in north Karnataka,a region that is home to a vast majority of the single largest dominant community of Karnataka,the Lingayats. A lawyer by profession,he was the leader of the opposition between 1999 and 2004 and was minister for revenue in the JDS-BJP government between 2006 and 2007 before being deposited in the political cold in 2008 by Yeddyurappa to prevent him from turning into a counter-force. Referred to popularly as Ajaatshatru for his amiability,refusal to nurse long-term grouses with rivals and ability to take people along,Shettar was at one time considered the leader most likely to head a BJP government in Karnataka until Yeddyurappa upstaged him through some dramatic political manoeuvring in 2006. He belongs to a sect within the Lingayat community that is considered more original than the sect that Yeddyurappa comes from. This has over the years given Shettar an edge as a Lingayat leader on his one-time friend and associate. This changed in 2006 when Yeddyurappa forced the BJP to forge an alliance with the JDS to form a coalition government under his leadership. Yeddyurappa also became the BJPs undisputed chief ministerial candidate for the 2008 polls on account of the sympathy he generated among the Lingayats after the JDS dumped the BJP in 2007. Shettars emergence now with the backing of Yeddyurappa is in fact also the story of Yeddyurappas attempt to assert his own supremacy and that of the Lingayat community.
