Who is Jagadish Shettar, the Lingayat heavyweight who resigned as BJP MLA ahead of Karnataka Assembly polls?

A prominent Lingayat leader in Karnataka, the six-time MLA served as the 15th chief minister of the state from 2012 to 2013. He also served as the Opposition leader (LoP) in the Legislative Assembly from 2014 to 2018 while the Siddaramaiah-led government was in power. A former Speaker of the Assembly (2008–2009), Shettar held various ministerial portfolios in the 2019-21 B S Yediyurappa Cabinet.

Born in 1955 at Kerur village in Badami taluk of Bagalkot district, Shettar kick-started his political life by working as an active member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

#WATCH | “I wanted only the MLA seat for Hubali-Dharwad-Central…I had contributed to the growth of the party in the state,” says Jagadish Shettar, after resigning as MLA at Sirsi.#KarnatakaElections pic.twitter.com/Fg5pjVHneL

— ANI (@ANI) April 16, 2023

He was elected to the state Assembly for the first time in 1994, from the Hubli Rural constituency with a winning margin of 16,000 votes.

He followed that up with two more wins from the same constituency — in 1999 and 2004 with victory margins of 25,000 and 26,000 votes, respectively. Since 2008, Shettar has been representing the Hubli-Dharwad Central constituency.

Shettar also served as the revenue minister from February 2006 to October 2007 and as the rural development and panchayati raj minister from 2009 to 2012.

A law graduate with over 20 years of experience as an advocate, Shettar has announced that he would contest the ensuing state Assembly polls “at any cost”. Shettar has recently, in a rebellious tone, said that denying him a ticket to the Hubli-Dharwad Central constituency would have a bearing on the BJP’s results in at least 20 to 25 seats.

#WATCH | “The people of Karnataka will not forgive Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi,” says BJP leader and former Karnataka CM, BS Yediyurappa in Bengaluru. pic.twitter.com/gTaegB7GQr

— ANI (@ANI) April 16, 2023

“I am totally disappointed. I have worked for the party for more than 30 years and have built it. They could have intimated to me two or three months ago, and I would have accepted it. But with a few days before filing the nominations, I was intimated not to contest. I have already started campaigning in the constituency,” he told the media on April 11.

The exit of Shettar, one of the foremost Lingayat leaders in the BJP alongside former chief minister B S Yediyurappa, is being seen as a fallout of a long-standing power struggle in the Hubli region between Shettar and rivals in the BJP, like Pralhad Joshi and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.

(With inputs from agencies, state legislature website)