BENGALURU: The BJP hopes to ride on former chief minister BS Yediyurappa’s popularity to win the October 30 bypolls to Sindagi and Hanagal Assembly constituencies. Many in the Karnataka BJP are hoping that the 78-year-old Lingayat strongman’s presence during the campaigning will help the party garner votes in the two seats dominated by the community.
Even the aspirants are knocking on Yediyurappa’s doors urging him to campaign. The BJP is making all efforts to retain Hanagal and win Sindagi. The state leaders, during the recent core committee meeting in Davanagere, had stressed on the need to win both the seats, as a failure to do so will send out a wrong message with less than 18 months to go for the 2023 Assembly polls.
Winning Hanagal in Haveri district, which is Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s home district, will be a matter of prestige for him. Bommai, along with his cabinet colleagues, will campaign once the party candidate is announced. The BJP is likely to field Ramesh Bhusanur from Sindagi, who lost in 2018 to M C Managuli of JDS, and Revati Udasi (wife of Haveri-Gadag MP Shivakumar Udasi and daughter-in-law of the late C M Udasi) from Hanagal.
A senior BJP leader said that Yediyurappa not campaigning will send out a wrong message, and add fuel to the Opposition’s fire against the BJP. “Yediyurappa might have stepped down as the CM... but he is inevitable for the party. Even if he makes a speech for just 10 minutes, it will help the party,’’ the leader added. According to sources, Bhusanur, the party’s frontrunner in Sindagi, met Yediyurappa urging him to campaign.
N Ravikumar, BJP state general secretary, said they will fight the bypolls under the collective leadership of Yediyurappa, Bommai and BJP state chief Nalin Kumar Kateel. Meanwhile, the BJP state core committee meeting, to be held in Benglauru on Sunday, is expected to give a clear roadmap for the party leaders and workers to face the bypolls.