BENGALURU: Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has been appointed chairman of the BJP’s Election Campaign Committee, while Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje has been made convenor of the Election Management Committee. With this, BJP has given key responsibilities to leaders from the two dominant communities, Lingayats and Vokkaligas.
Former chief minister BS Yediyurappa and BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel have been made members of the Election Campaign Committee. It has 25 members, three former chief ministers -- Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar and DV Sadananda Gowda, also nine ministers from Bommai’s cabinet -- B Sriramulu, Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, Govind Karjol, R Ashoka, Shashikala Jolle, CC Patil, Dr K Sudhakar, ST Somashekar and Prabhu Chavan.
Interestingly, former ministers KS Eshwarappa and Ramesh Jarkiholi, who were removed from the cabinet, are in the committee. But ministers V Somanna and KC Narayanagowda are not. It is not clear if this is due to reports of them quitting the party and joining Congress. Both leaders have, however, denied such reports.
The committee also has Aravind Limbavali, Srinivas Prasad, CT Ravi, PC Mohan and Chalavadi Narayanaswamy as members. State party vice-president BY Vijayendra has also been included in the committee. It has two Union ministers -- Pralhad Joshi and Karandlaje. Karandlaje has been included in both the committees and she is expected to play a bigger role in the coming Assembly polls. Limbavali and Chalavadi Narayanaswamy are also in both the committees. Narayanswamy is the president of BJP SC Morcha and Limbavali is a former minister and an MLA.
The BJP Election Management Committee includes BJP state vice-president Tejaswini Ananth Kumar and BJP Mahila Morcha state president Geetha Vivekananda. Other members are Union Minister Bhagawanth Khuba, state minister Kota Srinivas Poojary, MLC N Ravikumar, former MLC Ashwathnarayan, BJP state vice-president Nirmal Surana and others.
With these two panels, BJP has attempted to include influential leaders from major castes and also different regions. BJP National general secretary BL Santhosh’s name is not in any committee. Recently, Yediyurappa had said the party will fight the polls under Bommai’s leadership.