In Yediyurappa’s turf, son and heir Vijayendra’s victory rath faces Banjara bumps

The PA systems atop the campaign vehicles make it a point to periodically announce that “Vijayendra Yediyurappa” is the BJP’s candidate for the Shikaripura seat this time, as the party tries to counter precisely doubts such as the old woman’s.

In some villages, local leaders in the campaign vehicle tell voters how Vijayendra is “a good boy” who has looked after the constituency for his father. “Make him a state leader by voting for him in this election,” says retired forest officer Revannasiddaiah in Kolagi.

While Yediyurappa, 80, is a household name in Shikaripura cutting across generations, on account of his work in the region over the past 40 years, Vijayendra, 49, who has been a behind-the-scenes operator over the last decade — especially when Yediyurappa was the CM between 2019-21 — is making his electoral debut.

The generational shift is evident in the fact that many of the local BJP leaders organising the village-level campaign meetings are contemporaries of Yediyurappa, while those in the immediate circle of Vijayendra — in his campaign van and car — are younger associates.

“For the last three decades you have supported my father Yediyurappa. There has been a lot of development in Shikaripura. Now I am seeking the same kind of support,” Vijayendra says during campaign stops.

At many villages, Guru Lingamurthy, a close associate of Yediyurappa, introduces Vijayendra to the voters. The candidate himself cuts in, saying, “He (Lingamurthy) has nurtured this constituency while my father has been busy with state politics.”

In the 2018 elections, when he was the BJP’s chief minister candidate, Yediyurappa won the Shikaripura seat with virtually no campaigning, except on the day he filed his nominations. His sons and associates managed the constituency, which has a large number of Lingayat voters (20% of total), apart from those belonging to the Scheduled Caste Banjara/Lambani community (15%).

Yediyurappa’s son, in contrast, is leaving no stone unturned, as he fights to protect the family fiefdom against Congress candidate Goni Malthesh, 48, from the OBC Kuruba community. Malthesh is a former local councillor who lost to Yediyurappa in 2018.

Apart from lingering disappointment over Yediyurappa not contesting, Vijayendra has another reason to be cautious. For example, in the Chika Magadi hamlet of the Banjara/Lambani community, as Vijayendra is speaking, a few young men break into slogans accusing the BJP of cheating them.

The Banjara community is divided on the move by the Bommai government to provide internal quotas for SCs, with the Banjara community apprehensive that now their share of government jobs and education is down from the entire umbrella of 15% to 4.5%.

Soon after the BJP government increased the total SC quota to 17%, and proceeded to set aside 6% for the most deprived SC (Left) category, 5.5% for the SC (Right), 4.5% for the Banjaras and three other castes considered ‘touchables’, and 1% for the Others, a group of Banjara protesters had hurled stones at Yediyurappa’s Shikaripura house.

“We are not taking away the SC category reservations of the Banjara community. We have stated this in the Supreme Court through an affidavit,” Lingamurthy stresses at the Chika Magadi thanda as a few young men, dismissed as “Congress workers”, try to shout him down.

Vijayendra on his part says at every Banjara hamlet in the region that a misinformation campaign has been launched by rivals that the BJP plans to do away the SC quota of the Banjaras.”Do not be misled by the campaign by our rivals, there is no such move. It is Yediyurappa who created a corporation for the development of Banjara villages,” he stresses.

Shanmukhappa, 65, a BJP gram panchayat leader in Togarsi village, says the Muslims too were angry over the government taking away their 4% quota and redistributing it among others, while moving them to the larger EWS category. However, he says, “While the Banjara hamlets were nearly 60:40 in terms of supporting us a few weeks ago, we have managed to bring this down to 50:50. The Muslims have been convinced.”

The BJP is also counting on the fact that its support remains steadfast in villages where Lingayats, the community to which the Yediyurappa belongs, are dominant.

At Agrahara Muchadi, a village with a large Lingayat population, local BJP leader Shivalingaiah, who is entering his 70s, says efforts are on to ensure that as many as 900 of the 1,200 votes in the village are cast in favor of Vijayendra.

“Yediyurappa has transformed every village in this region. Funds have been provided for the development of temples. There is drinking and irrigation water. There are all forms of schools and colleges in the region and the Shikaripura taluk hospital is no longer the place it once was, when people used to think twice before going there for health issues,” says the BJP leader.

“We think voting for a Congress candidate at this stage would be a setback to the region for the next five years,” says Karthik, the grandson of the BJP leader. “It won’t be gracious for us to reject Yediyurappa’s son, after what has been done for the region,” says Veeranna, a member of the OBC Madivala community in the Yelagere village.

Yediyurappa represented Shikaripura eight times starting 1983, and lost only one election in 1999. In recent times, especially since 2006, when he was the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, he has won elections comfortably without his rivals putting up a fight.

Even in 2013 when he left the BJP and floated his own party the Karnataka Janata Party — to spite the BJP for not backing him amidst charges of corruption and nepotism — he defeated his nearest rival Shanta Veerappa Gowda of the Congress by a margin of 24,000 votes.

The only time the BJP and Yediyurappa received a scare in Shikaripura in recent times was in an Assembly bypoll in 2014, held after Yeddyurappa returned to the BJP at the behest of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, and was elected to Parliament from Shimoga.

With Yediyurappa going to the Lok Sabha, the vacant Shikaripura Assembly seat was handed over to his oldest son B Y Raghavendra. In a bypoll held in August 2014, Raghavendra managed to scrape through by just 6,000 votes. Raghavendra is currently the BJP Shimoga MP.

The transformation of the Shivamogga region — especially the city and Shikaripura (located 40 km from the city) — in the period that Yediyurappa was the CM of the state (2008-12 and 2019-21) is visible.

Once a sleepy, agricultural town, Shimoga city now has malls, big hotels, hospitals, call centres, top banks and financial institutions. Some of the properties in Shimoga, including a couple of high-end hotels, are referred to as Yeddyurappa’s properties by the locals. In Shikaripura itself, a textile park has come up that can employ 10,000 women.

It is on the back of these achievements of his father that at all his campaign stops, Vijayendra’s appeal to voters is common: elect him with a victory margin of over 50,000 votes.