Few leaders in Karnataka can draw crowds purely on the basis of being stand out entertainers. While most political leaders tend to fall in the category of the dry and the drab, these leaders have the ability to deliver humour-laced rhetoric that cuts across the political spectrum.
Former Karnataka chief minister Siddarmaiah, JD(S) president C M Ibrahim, former BJP Union minister and current Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal fall squarely in the latter category.
Yatnil, 59, is considered the uncrowned king of political rhetoric in Karnataka’s northern districts, where the dialect of Kannada and nuances of life and political humour differ from the southern parts.
A two-time BJP Lok Sabha MP (1999-2004), Yatil was also a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Union government between 2002 and 2004.
His ability to tell it like it is; to deliver unbridled political jibes at rivals; to keep BJP supporters in splits; and hit the right notes of Hindutva have made Yatnal a key weapon in the Karnataka BJP’s arsenal.
It is no small wonder then that while the BJP has threatened disciplinary action against Yatnal for recent vocal tirades against his own BJP government, it has also approached him to be one of the party’s star campaigners in the 2023 state polls.
In 2010, Yatnal was considered down and out in the BJP when he quit the party to join the JD(S), miffed at not being made a minister in the first BJP government in Karnataka under B S Yediyurappa.
He rejoined the party in 2013 but was expelled in 2015 for anti-party activities. He went on to emerge as a prominent face in the BJP from 2018, when he was taken back into the party fold by Yediyurappa.
A maverick politician, whom party insiders consider “indisciplined” to hold high offices, Yatnal does not have roots in the Sangh Parivar, unlike his counterparts.
Identified first as a bright prospect in the 1990s by BJP leader and former Union Minister H N Ananth Kumar, who died in 2018, he is considered a member of the Ananth Kumar camp, which has been squaring off with the rival Yediyurappa camp for decades. For this reason, perhaps, Yatnal got more opportunities as a leader in central politics rather than in Karnataka BJP that has been primarily controlled by Yediyurappa.
The recent rise of Yatnal as a voice and internal critic of his party unit– even a possible successor to Yediyurappa’s legacy as a leader of the dominant Lingayat community – has coincided with the decline of Yediyurappa’s dominance under the Modi-Shah watch.
Recent attacks by Yatnal on the state BJP, including comments on Yediyurappa and his son Vijayendra and state ministers considered to be in the Yediyurappa camp, have given credence to the theory that Yatnal has been licensed in the BJP to shoot from the lip.
Over the past two years, Yatnal has been at the forefront of the Panchamasali Lingayat movement for 15 per cent reservations for the subsect of the Lingayat community under the OBC quota.
The movement puts the BJP in a political spot and holds the prospect of the division of the votes from the Lingayat community that has traditionally supported the BJP since the 1990s and constitutes 17 percent of the state population.
Yatnal’s influence is also illustrated in his statement from October 2020, when he was one of the first to signal the possible exit of Yediyurappa as CM. “He will not continue for long. The people on top are fed up,” Yatnal said at a rally then. “Even the BJP leadership has realised that north Karnataka contributes the maximum seats to the BJP. They want to make someone from north Karnataka the CM,” he added.
Yatnal’s verbal attacks have been most severe on BJP Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani, considered to be in the Yediyurappa camp. Nirani also belongs to the Panchamasali sub-sect.
The recent controversy surrounding Yatnal involves his accusations on BJP ministers of using blackmail tactics and money to obtain their posts. He also referred to Nirani as a “pimp”. The Nirani family has, in turn, threatened to defeat Yatnal in the polls, and called him “shikhandi” on social media.
Yatnal had previously alleged that BJP leaders have attempted to buy their way to ministerial posts and the CM post, with payments as high as Rs 2500 crore.
In 2021, he said, “If I was interested in CD politics (blackmail) I could have become a deputy CM anytime. Some people went to Delhi and said they will give Rs 2000 crore (to be made minister). Our party is not like that. Our party is for all – they have made OBC, SC/ST, and women ministers recently.”
Amidst the push to take action on Yatnal from within the BJP, Siddarmaiah said recently: “Sometimes Yatnal speaks the truth. He spoke about Rs 2,500 crore being sought for the post of the CM and ministers in the BJP. He was speaking the truth.”
Yatnal was among the state BJP leaders who, in 2021, objected to Yediyurappa’s move to hand over nearly 3000 acres of mining land to JSW Steel group at a low cost.
“We are against the state government’s decision to sell land worth crores to JSW for just 1.25 lakh per acre. We wrote a letter against the decision taken by Yeddyurappa to party president J P Nadda. In the backdrop of the intervention of our party high command, the decision to give land to the company has been withdrawn,” he said in May 2021.
In 2020, when astrologer Yuvaraj, who boasted of high political connections to allegedly cheat several people of crores of rupees was arrested, Yatnal highlighted wrongdoing in the BJP. “Yuvaraj has been arrested because he was involved in illegal work. A lot of politicians have paid him crores. Many have paid him saying they want to become an MP, a Rajya Sabha member, a minister.”
When his name was mentioned in 2021 as a possible CM candidate when Yediyurappa was being replaced – current CM Basavaraj Bommai eventually took over the post – Yatnal had dismissed his candidature. “I am not in any race. The PM will pick a leader who is honest, pro-Hindutva, and capable of bringing the party to power in the next elections as the chief minister,” he said.
Along the way, Yatnal became a poster boy of hard-line Hindutva politics in the state like former union minister and five-time BJP MP Ananth Kumar Hegde, who is now battling a serious illness, was earlier. In 2018, Yatnal said at a Kargil Vijay Diwas meeting: “The biggest danger to the nation is from intellectuals and secularists. If I were the Home minister I would finish them all by shooting them.”
He also stirred controversy in 2018 by telling councillors in Vijayapura to only serve Hindus in the constituency since “they had voted for him and not Muslims”.
Three years ago, he called veteran freedom fighter H S Doreswamy a “fake freedom fighter” and a “Pakistani agent” for taking up liberal causes. Yatnal has also been arrested in the past for allegedly stirring communal trouble in the Vijayapura region.
In the wake of his recent remarks against Nirani, the BJP has reportedly issued a notice of disciplinary action against Yatnal. The BJP MLA has, however, denied receiving any notice from the party leadership.
“We have reported the remarks to the party leadership. The leadership is aware of all this. We had given notices in the past and he had been quiet for a year. Now he has spoken again about a few issues. Nirani has also spoken. Our party president has spoken to the party leaders and has sent a report. We will decide on the issue after the national executive meeting,” Bommai said.