BENGALURU: The BJP brass has a tough task on hand to find an acceptable successor to 78-year-old Lingayat strongman and chief minister BS Yediyurappa if they decide to replace him.
Yediyurappa completes two years in office on July 26 in his fourth innings as CM and there are indications he may be asked to resign. Party sources privy to developments said the central leadership has shortlisted a dozen names with the 2023 assembly polls in mind. Karnataka is significant since it’s BJP’s gateway to the south.
Sources said the party has zeroed in on eight persons and it appears a Lingayat will take forward Yediyurappa’s legacy. In this scenario, Dharwad West MLA Arvind Bellad, Vijayapura MLA Basannagouda Patil Yatnal, mines and geology minister Murgesh R Nirani and Basavaraj Bommai stand a chance as they’re from the powerful Lingayat community.
Yatnal’s strong RSS roots and experience as Union minister may come in handy. He’s quite popular in North Karnataka and was at the forefront of the agitation earlier this year by Panchamasali Lingayats seeking quota for the backward caste group. He was reportedly handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Yatnal made headlines recently when he publicly claimed that Yediyurappa’s time was up and his successor would be from north Karnataka.
Bellad, 50, an engineer and businessman from Dharwad, is a low-profile politician with a clean image. He’s the son of veteran RSS and five-time BJP MLA Chandrakant Bellad.
Sugar baron Niran, a third-time MLA from Bilgi constituency in Bagalkot, has a good personal equation with Union home minister Amit Shah. In January, Shah launched the ethanol project in Nirani’s sugar factory in Bagalkot. “What may go against him are some pending cases,” said a BJP MLA.
If Yediyurappa is asked to suggest a successor, he may name home minister Basavaraj Bommai, son of former chief minister SR Bommai.
Non-Lingayat names in the mix include Union minister Pralhad Joshi (Brahmin) and CT Ravi (Vokkaliga). If Karnataka BJP chief Nalin Kumar Kateel’s purported audio leak is anything to go by, Joshi could be top of the list. Joshi, a four-time MP from Dharwad, is strongly backed by the RSS.
Ravi, 54, a four-time legislator from Chikkamagaluru constituency, is a prominent Vokkaliga face of the BJP and known for hard-line Hindutva politics. In September 2020, this tourism and Kannada & culture minister in the cabinet was elevated as BJP national general secretary.
Other names doing the rounds are BL Santosh, CN Ashwath Narayan, Laxman Savadi, Govind Karjol and Visveshwara Hegde Kageri. However, many BJP MLAs say they aren’t vote-catchers. “Modi, Shah and JP Nadda will take the final call. If they don’t find a suitable replacement, they may ask Yediyurappa to continue till they find one,”’ said a senior BJP functionary.
