Yeddyurappa & Sons

It is this land deal that ultimately played a role in bringing to an end Yeddyurappa’s tenure as chief minister.

After this first successful land transaction,Yeddyurappa’s sons went on to complete 12 other similar land de-notification deals for which,according to complaints pending before anti-corruption courts in the state,they either received circuitous payments in their companies or got portions of valuable land around Bangalore at dirt cheap prices.

The brothers were looking for deals everywhere. In March 2010,an education Trust run in their hometown of Shimoga received a total of Rs 20 crore from affiliates of steel major JSW Steel Ltd,ostensibly as a donation.

In August 2010,shortly after their father had banned iron ore exports from Karnataka,the individual accounts of the two brothers and their brother-in-law received a total of Rs 20 crore—again from the same South West Mining Company,an affiliate of JSW Steel Ltd,that made the March 2010 donation to the Chief Minister’s family Trust.

Official notes in the company’s ledger that were released by the Opposition parties in Karnataka on November 20,2010,said the payments were for “purchase of land near Manyata Tech Park,Bangalore.” There were,however,no documents registered for such a land deal between the mining company and Yeddyurappa’s family until November 22,2010.

The land that was finally shown as being sold to the South West Mining Company was the same 1.20 acres of government land that Yeddyurappa had released for his sons at the start of his tenure.

In a July 27 report on illegal mining in the state,the Karnataka Lokayukta has cited this land deal,coupled with the donations to the family Trust,as acts of corruption warranting prosecution for criminal misconduct.

Over the course of his three-year tenure,whenever he has been confronted by his serial largesse to his family members,Yeddyurappa’s quip has been,“Is there any rule that politicians’ sons must not run businesses? These things have been done during the tenures of various Chief Ministers.’’

In the end,for the Yeddyurappa family,political power was merely a business enterprise meant to be cashed in on. In keeping with this philosophy,the family went about gathering wealth with a vengeance paralleled only by the tenure of

S Bangarappa,whom Yeddyurappa fought in the 2008 assembly elections that brought him the Chief Minister’s position.

Since 2006,when he became deputy chief minister in a JD(S)-BJP government,and through the last three years when he has been chief minister,Yeddyurappa and his family have expanded their business portfolio from agriculture to education,real estate and hospitality.

From owning two educational institutions and a marriage hall in Shikaripur in 2006,the family now owns half the educational establishments in Shimoga.

There is an engineering and management college called PESITM,run by the Prerana Educational and Social Trust headed by Yeddyurappa’s elder son,38-year-old B Y Raghavendra. Yeddyurappa had initiated Raghavendra,now a Member of Parliament from Shimoga,into politics in 2009. The family also owns the Mythradevi nursing college and school and the Kumudavati school,junior college and polytechnic. The family has also bought large plots of land in Shimoga and bought into the best hotels in the region.

“Yeddyurappa’s family’s wealth began growing after he became the deputy chief minister in 2006. At that time,he had an outstanding loan of Rs 2 crore which was a borrowing to fight elections,’’ says Ravi Kumar,a Shimoga businessman. “The family does not trust people. That is why they end up doing deals in their own names. This has been their ruin when compared to other political families in Karnataka,’’ says Kumar.

Rising from the modest confines of Shikaripura,a small hunting town from the days of the British,in Shimoga district,Yeddyurappa,now 68,first worked as a rice mill clerk earning Rs 130 a month before he married the daughter of his boss.

His political career began in the 1970s when he was made secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Shikaripura unit and was later elected president of the local Jan Sangh unit.

Over the years,Yeddyurappa rose through the ranks of the RSS and emerged as the BJP’s foremost leader after winning six assembly elections and leading popular movements like a fight for the land rights of tribals in his hometown.

All those years that he was elected to the state legislature,Yeddyurappa watched from the Opposition benches as politicians in the treasury benches—many with modest beginnings like his—transformed themselves into powerful and wealthy leaders.

That he was biding his time to sit in the treasury benches is apparent from the fact that he stitched a new safari suit—his favourite attire—before every election in the hope that the BJP would come to power and that he would be sworn in as Chief Minister.

Five years ago,just before he became deputy chief minister in the JD(S)-BJP coalition,Yeddyurappa is said to have been so desperate for power that he was willing to split the BJP to ally with the JD(S) if his party had not agreed to his proposals.

Yeddyurappa lost his wife Mythradevi in 2004. She was found drowned in a sump in the compound of the family’s house in Shikaripura,Shimoga. Apart from his two sons,Raghavendra and Vijayendra,Yeddyurappa also has three daughters,Arunadevi,Padmavati and Umadevi.

Raghavendra,a science graduate,is the son who is seen most often in public. He became MP after Yeddyurappa did an about-turn on his stated policy of not promoting his own family members in politics and got him a BJP ticket from Shimoga.

Barely a month after he was elected MP,Raghavendra was allotted a 4,000-square-ft housing plot—valued in the market at Rs 1 crore—for a throwaway price of

Rs 10 lakh under the chief minister’s discretionary quota.

Raghavendra,who declared assets worth Rs 6.5 crore at the time of the elections in 2009,did not reveal his ownership of two private properties in Bangalore to the Election Commission or to the Bangalore Development Authority that allotted the 4,000-sq-ft residential plot to him.

Before he became MP,Raghavendra was largely confined to the family borough of Shikaripura in Shimoga as the local guardian of his father’s constituency. The biggest political post he had held till 2008 was that of the local town council member.

“It is definitely an advantage to be the chief minister’s son. I agree with that. But,we have also worked hard,’’ Raghavendra said while campaigning for the general elections in 2009.

The younger son,Vijayendra,36,holds a law degree and has for long been the family’s deal maker in Bangalore—spreading interests across the real estate sector. With a penchant for the good life,Vijayendra parked himself in luxury hotels and was the man to turn to to get things done in government. He is the one government officials often turned to for transfers and appointments. He is also the treasurer of the family’s Prerana Educational and Social Trust.

Yeddyurappa’s sons and son-in-law R Sohan Kumar floated several companies such as Davalagiri Properties and Bhagath Homes—both real-estate firms—Fluid Power Technologies,Sahyadri Healthcare and Besto Ice Cream after Yeddyurappa came to power. A land donation of two acres to his daughter Umadevi outside Bangalore helped her set up a BPO called Candor Solutions Pvt Ltd.

A second daughter,S Y Arunadevi,who is based in Shimoga,was recently accused by a lawyer in the district of grabbing four plots in a proposed middle-income-group colony using benami applicants.

One of the final favours that Chief Minister Yeddyurappa did for his family,before the Lokayukta report emerged on July 27 to dislodge him from power,was to take the entire family on a six-day holiday to Mauritius—a farewell to power,maybe.

The importance of being BSY

The key to understanding the importance of B S Yeddyurappa as a political leader for the BJP in Karnataka lies in the numbers he has delivered for the party in elections held in the state during his leadership—starting with the assembly polls of April-May 2008.

Riding a sympathy wave that rose in his favour after he was denied the opportunity to be chief minister in October 2007,Yeddyurappa led the BJP to within striking distance of forming its own government for the first time,helping it win 110 seats in the 224-member state assembly—the best ever performance by the BJP in the state.

The 110 seats were won largely on the support of Yeddyurappa’s Lingayat community,which makes up as much as 17 per cent of the population in the state and dictates results across northern Karnataka. As many as 56 BJP legislators in the state assembly belong to the Lingayat community.

Since coming to power in 2008,Yeddyurappa has consolidated his position as a Lingayat leader by sidelining competitors and making generous donations to the religious Trusts of the community.

While the BJP came a cropper in most parts of the country in the 2009 parliamentary polls,it put up a staggering performance in Karnataka,winning 19 out of 28 seats under Yeddyurappa. The Lingayat leader delivered results in 19 out of 24 assembly by-polls held in the state,apart from victories in zilla panchayat and gram panchayat elections.

Having no Lingayat leaders of repute or his stature in the opposition Congress and the JD(S) has helped Yeddyurappa in a big way in the face of attacks over corruption and nepotism that he has faced in the last three years.

Any criticism of Yeddyurappa has been seen by the Lingayat community as a slight against them by members of other communities.

As the BJP attempts to replace Yeddyurappa,the party will be treading carefully around him,knowing that he could even attempt to split the party if his interests are not regarded in the short run.