BENGALURU: He was the man, who despite being the leader of the single largest party, had to face the humiliation of walking out before proving his majority. And again, he was the man who broke the coalition government and went from strength to strength despite opposition from within and outside, building the party.
On Monday, it was as if Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, who has emerged as the tallest BJP leader in Karnataka, has avenged his ‘defeat’. Today, he is sitting pretty with a comfortable majority and has delivered Karnataka to the party bosses.
The 76-year-old Chief Minister almost single-handedly swept the bypolls, further consolidating his position within the party and authority over the government. Many in his own party had termed the bypolls as “of BSY, by BSY and for BSY”. And, yet again, he proved that he was indeed a formidable election-fighting machine in the party, and in the state.
From winning his first election to the municipal council in Shikaripura in the early 1970s to entering the assembly for the first time in 1983, and emerging as a strong Lingayat leader, to become the CM for the fourth time, Yediyurappa has come a long way over the last four decades.
In fact, the bypoll that lifted the BJP tally way above the simple majority mark of 113 in the 224-member assembly, proved that his influence was no longer confined to the Lingayat stronghold in North Karnataka, but has also spread to the Vokkaliga heartland in Old Mysore region. As a leader who championed the farmers’ cause, Yediyurappa is also credited with taking the largely urban-centric BJP to the rural areas. As a result, BJP has now emerged as a pan-Karnataka party.
According to insiders, who were in the know of the developments right from the word go, everything, including selection of candidates, planning the election campaign to touring the state twice to drive home the point -- “the need for a stable government” -- was meticulously planned by CM himself.