Yediyurappa out, central BJP firms up new strategy: Direct line to seers of caste groups

The top Lingayat leaders from the Karnataka BJP such as Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar, Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, Murugesh Nirani were absent. So were Vokkaliga leaders such as Dr C N Ashwathnarayan, R Ashoka, and K Sudhakar. While Lingayats are the single-largest caste group in Karnataka, Vokkaligas are the second-most dominant caste group. Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, a Lingayat, who is considered to carry very little clout of his own, was the biggest state political figure at the event.

For many in the state BJP, the event was a sign of the near culmination of the BJP central leadership’s strategy over the last few years to reduce dependence on caste-based leaders for generating support for the party and to go directly to the religious leaders of the castes.

The presence of the Vokkaliga seer Nirmalanandanatha Swami, Lingayat seers Shivarathri Deshikendra Swami, Nanjavadutha Swami and Shivamurthy Shivacharya Swami, Brahmin Pejaver Mutt pontiff Vishwaprasanna Theertha Swami, and Jain spiritual leader Dr Veerendra Heggade (a Rajya Sabha MP) at the Delhi event is seen as part of a BJP central leadership’s strategy to cultivate religious leaders in Karnataka on its own.

Elements of the strategy have been evident over the last few years but it is now believed to be in place with local claimants to the support of the top religious leaders — like Yediyurappa who cultivated the support of Lingayat mutts through Budget allocations and grants — eased out of active politics.

Ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections, the BJP started a centralised exercise of directly courting Karnataka’s religious leaders without its state leaders playing intermediaries. In 2017 and 2018, the then BJP national president Amit Shah met Nirmalanandanatha Swami on several occasions and even stayed at his ashram.

The BJP, however, has not been able to win the support of the Vokkaliga community by liaising with the prominent seer on account of the presence of key political leaders from the community such as former Prime H D Deve Gowda and his son H D Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular).

In recent months, Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda have hopped across several top religious Mutts during visits to Karnataka. In January, Nadda visited a Panchamasali Lingayat Mutt, a Kanaka Guru Peeta of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), a Valmiki Guru Peeta of Scheduled Tribes (STs) , the Siddaganga Mutt of Lingayats, the Madara Channaiah Mutt, and the Bhovi Gurupeetha of Scheduled Castes.

“The Prime Minister is connecting directly with the Kannada people, whether it is Lingayats or Vokkaligas, without the support of local leaders,” sources in the BJP said after the February 25 event.

Yediyurappa’s exit from the electoral fray — which he announced last week — is seen as one of the final steps in the BJP’s strategy of taking total centralised control of political affairs in Karnataka.

“The Swamijis are now with the PM and the party and not any individual from the state. The seers are happy. Even if someone wants to do internal damage (in the polls) they have to play through the Mutts and cannot do it themselves,” said a BJP insider. “Yediyurappa is no longer on the scene and all others can be handled by the party.”

The easing of Yediyurappa out of the poll scene where he was a dominant figure for four decades has been a tricky affair for the BJP. It has required a “carrot and stick” type of approach by the central leadership in the form of the threat of corruption cases against his family and continued backing of the political ambitions of the veteran leader’s sons.

The internal contradictions behind the BJP’s move to ease out Yediyurappa and keep him in the party’s good books have been apparent in the political rhetoric in Karnataka over the last few days, with PM Modi suggesting that the Congress treats its political leaders badly amid concerns that the exit of Yediyurappa could weaken the BJP.

While Modi and Yediyurappa have put up a public display of appreciation for each other there are tensions below the surface, claim BJP insiders. “Yediyurappa cannot do anything now and he will not do it. He also cannot do anything because it is a question of the political future of his sons in the party,” said a party insider.

The BJP’s concern that the complete sidelining of the Lingayat leader could still hurt it has resulted in the maintenance of tenuous ties with Yediyurappa, including a show of closeness between Modi and the Lingayat strongman during the opening of the Shivamogga airport on February 27 on the occasion of Yediyurappa’s 80th birthday. Yediyurappa however stayed away from a few political meetings of Amit Shah in December and January.

While Yediyurappa is said to have been keen on having a big political celebration for his 80th birthday and mark his exit from the poll fray in an election year, the BJP leadership may have nudged him against coming up with any grand show of strength, according to party sources.

“He (BSY) wanted to have a big event for his birthday but they did not allow it,” Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar said on Tuesday while claiming that Modi only paid lip service to the Lingayat strongman on his birthday.

“We do not want the lip service of Modi sir or the BJP. What you do for the community and for the person is more important. I will not comment on whether the Lingayat votes are slipping away (from the BJP). I will not talk on caste lines. People are not stupid,” he said.

Shivakumar insinuated that Yediyurappa was forced into political submission by the BJP central leadership through the threat of corruption and money laundering cases against his family and close friends.

“Yediyurappa is attending the programmes of the BJP reluctantly due to the pressures brought against him by the party leaders,” Congress spokesperson Ramesh Babu said last month.

Incidentally, following the opening of the Shivamogga airport, Modi said the Congress, unlike the BJP, shabbily treated two chief ministers from the Lingayat community.

“Whenever the Congress is upset with a local leader it begins humiliating the leader. History is witness to the humiliation of leaders like S Nijalingappa and Veerendra Patil to the Congress party’s dynastic politics,” the PM said in Belagavi.

Yediyurappa has publicly rejected claims that the BJP has eased him into political retirement. “I am hearing a lot of criticism saying the BJP has sidelined me. The BJP and PM Modi have never sidelined us and the positions given to Yediyurappa and the respect given when it is observed I feel indebted to PM Modi,” the former CM said in his final days in the legislature.

Yediyurappa incidentally left the BJP in 2012 following differences with the BJP leadership under L K Advani. He created the Karnataka Janata Party and caused serious damage to the BJP in the 2013 polls before being brought back to the party by the Modi-Shah duo ahead of the 2014 general elections.

The former CM has insisted that he is not a spent political force as many believe. “I will be travelling around the state soon. I will visit every constituency in the state soon for two months. We will be holding big meetings and in the next two months there will be a big change and the BJP wave will flow through the state,” he told the state assembly last week.