Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Ministers pay respect to the bust of Basaveshwara on the event of Basava Jayanti in Bengaluru. Photo: Special Arrangement
As election dates have been introduced for Karnataka, one of the crucial keenly watched contests, for the BJP, the problem isn’t just to retain the lone southern State in its kitty, however to have a look at a broadbasing of its assist base beyond just the previous Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s Lingayat enchantment.
The announcement by the Basavaraj Bommai authorities to take away 4% reservations to Muslims and divide them among the many Veerashaiva Lingayat sect and the Vokkaliga group isn’t just about makes an attempt to polarise the vote on spiritual strains, however extra a pointer on the place the BJP has staked its wooing capability.
While Veerashaiva Lingayats are a conventional vote financial institution for the BJP, the Vokkaliga group has voted for both the Congress or the Janata Dal (S) and the Old Mysore space has lengthy remained out of the attain of the BJP. In the Lok Sabha, the state of affairs is totally different as nationwide points, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pan-State enchantment works for the BJP.
The appointment of Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje, a Vokkaliga, because the chief of the election administration committee for the BJP for these polls can be an indicator that the BJP desires to, whereas retaining Lingayat assist, additionally attain out to Vokkaligas.
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The huge thriller for some time has been why, with Mr. Yediyurappa being such an enormous chief amongst Lingayats, with out whom a BJP victory is inconceivable, was he eliminated as Chief Minister and later wooed again as a member of the BJP’s parliamentary board?
According to a senior chief of the BJP concerned in Karnataka, the shut identification between Mr. Yediyurappa and the Lingayat group was itself a difficulty for the BJP, which wished the vote for the organisation, celebration and beliefs, and never just accrue to a person chief. “After he [Mr. Yediyurappa] quit, it was soon very clear that he still commanded the support of the Lingayat community, and whatever happened in 2013 [when Mr. Yediyurappa floated his own outfit, the Karnataka Janatha Paksha, reducing the BJP to third position] was front and centre,” mentioned the chief.
Keep in good humour
The effort since then is to preserve Mr. Yediyurappa in good humour however to additionally broadbase the celebration. In coastal Karnataka, the enchantment of Hindutva works for the BJP, however elsewhere, the buildup of assist from communities throughout the spectrum is essential.
These Assembly elections is not going to see Mr. Yediyurappa immediately within the fray, and for the BJP, the true query of those elections might be whether or not or not the Lingayat vote will come to the celebration, sans a chief ministerial aspirant in Mr. Yediyurappa, and whether or not any ingress might be made into different communities, liberating the celebration from the dominance of a single caste base.
