On February 23, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai arrived late at a Bengaluru seminar on the changes in political paradigms in the Narendra Modi era, organised by an RSS communication unit called Samvada, which was addressed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Bommai was at the Legislature that evening replying to a discussion on the state budget he presented on February 17, which caused his late arrival at Shah's event. On spotting Bommai entering the seminar venue, Town Hall, Shah asked him to take a seat on the stage instead of sitting among the audience. "You should be ideally standing not sitting," Shah joked in what seemed like a veiled chide directed at the CM months before the Assembly polls. The BJP has not projected a chief ministerial candidate for the polls due in April-May, maintaining that it will fight the polls under the leadership of PM Modi, Bommai, and former CM B S Yediyurappa, with the party appearing to have a loss of confidence in the incumbent CM. On the day he spoke at the seminar, Shah also addressed a rally in Ballari, where he omitted any mention of Bommai being at the forefront of the ruling party's poll campaign. "Please trust Modiji once more, please trust Yediyurappa once more, we will provide governance that will liberate Karnataka from corruption in five years and will make Karnataka the number one state in South India,'' Shah told the Ballari rally. Bommai's perceived fall from grace in the BJP central leadership's scheme of things in the run-up to the Assembly polls has coincided with the return of the Lingayat strongman Yediyurappa, the four-time CM and eight-term MLA, in its good books. This is especially significant as Bommai has taken some key measures in recent months – such as the provision of increased reservation for SCs/STs and populist schemes like scholarships for higher studies by poor students – to boost his image. At a state government event for the opening of the Shivamogga airport on February 27 – on the occasion of Yediyurappa's 80th birthday – PM Modi praised the former CM for his politics and humility, but did not mention his successor Bommai. With Yediyurappa having been eased out of electoral politics, and Bommai falling out of its favour, the BJP leadership's strategy for the Assembly polls is to avoid projecting any leader as the CM candidate – unlike the 2018 polls when Yediyurappa was evidently the CM face – and to contest the polls riding entirely on the Modi factor, BJP sources said. "Bommai has fallen out of favor in the party now. He has been pulled up on several occasions for his functioning by Amit Shah. The PM will lead the BJP in the polls,'' a BJP insider said. Bommai has been found wanting on several occasions, with the CM recently drawing flak from various quarters for turning up late at an event to felicitate the tennis great Bjorn Borg at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association. There has also been a perception in the BJP that a recent public spat between a woman IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri and a woman IPS officer D Roopa – which severely embarrassed the government – would not have erupted in the public domain if the CM had handled the row effectively. BJP sources said that Shah pulled up Bommai during his recent visit to Bengaluru on the issue of corruption in the government, expressing concerns on its impact in urban constituencies like the Bengaluru region, where 28 Assembly seats are at stake. The graft issue is being used by the principal Opposition Congress as a key plank of its poll campaign. Bommai has had a chequered stint as the CM after being picked as the Lingayat face to replace Yediyurappa, who was forced by the BJP leadership to step down in July 2021 amid rising charges of corruption and his family's “interference” in the state administration. Bommai initially worked to please the BJP leadership and the Sangh Parivar by justifying alleged acts of moral and cultural policing by the right-wing vigilantes in the state, especially in coastal Karnataka. He however also got mired in allegations of corruption from his tenure as the state home minister during 2019 -2021, which weakened his position in the BJP camp. In October 2022, Bommai announced a six per cent increase in reservations for two electorally significant and socially backward communities, SCs and STs, which was touted as a ``political masterstroke'' ahead of the Assembly polls. However, Bommai's brief rise coinciding with the gradual sidelining of his “benefactor” Yediyurappa resulted in a pushback from the latter, who sought to remind the BJP leadership of his salience in Karnataka politics by staying away from several BJP rallies of Shah and BJP president J P Nadda in the state towards the end of 2022. Evidently, Yediyurappa has bounced back into the BJP high command's favour, with the veteran leader and Shah showering praises on each other at an event in Udupi on February 11. "The farmers of the whole country remember Yediyurappa. When Yediyurappa was in power there was development for farmers of Karnataka. The whole country remembers Yediyurappa because the city of Bengaluru developed under Yediyurappa. Today Modi has done a lot of work in this region," Shah had told the Udupi gathering. Yediyurappa had then called Shah a ``modern Sardar Vallabhai Patel'' and praised the Modi-Shah combination for their political agenda for the country. "No force in the world can match up to the hard work of this duo. You know that their contribution is immense for the progress of the country," he said. On his part, Bommai has maintained that he has not had any falling out with Yediyurappa. "He (Yediyurappa) is our supreme leader. All political planning will be done only after consultations with him. We have his blessings. We have a father-son relationship and there cannot be a question of differences between us and it is a matter of speculation," he said in December last year amid speculation of his rift with Yediyurappa. On Yediyurappa's 80th birthday, a “Basavaraj Bommai Fan Club” released full-page advertisements in local newspapers hailing the former as "a statesman," a “disciplined and loyal soldier" of the BJP and a "farmers' leader".
