Yediyurappa is now 78 and well over the party’s prescribed age limit of 75 years to hold public office. He will not lead the party in the next Assembly polls in 2023, as he would be over 80 by then. Karnataka is the southern gateway for the BJP as the party has grown steadily here. The BJP has now become the third pillar along with Congress and the J.D. (S) and Yediyurappa had a big role in building the party from the grounds up.

Unfortunately, though he came to power four times, he had not completed a single term ever. BSY quit reluctantly as the high command has worked out his exit plans with minimum damage to the party.

Incidentally, the RSS, too, wanted a younger leader to take over. Karnataka has produced many important RSS leaders - from late RSS chief K. Sudarshan and Seshadri to present-day leaders like Dattatreya Hosbole, B.L. Santosh, and C.R. Mukund.

Yediyurappa has been an asset as well as a liability to the party. BSY is a shrewd manipulator who knows how to snatch power from the opponents, be it the Janata Dal coalition or the Congress. He is adept at using the age-old tricks of defection and lure of money. Even in the 2017 polls, the BJP did not get a simple majority. To keep BJP out, the Congress, and the JD(Secular) formed a government with the J.D. (S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy as the chief minister. Yediyurappa pulled down this government in 2019 and became the chief minister for the fourth time.

Why is Yediyurappa important for the BJP? First of all, there is no Lingayat leader to match his appeal in the state, either in Congress or the JD(S). The BJP, too, did not develop the second rung of leadership.

Secondly, it is the crucial caste politics that is going in favor of the chief minister. Lingayats are the state’s single most significant community, ( 17 percent). Of the 500 mutts in the state most are Lingayat mutts followed by Vokkaliga mutts. The community can tilt the balance in as many as 90-100 of the state’s 224 assembly constituencies. The seers, who got solid support financially and otherwise from the chief minister, openly supported BSY.

The Lingayats traditionally supported the Congress but moved away in the seventies only to return briefly. But they withdrew their support after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi abruptly sacked popular Lingayat chief minister Veerendra Patil. In 1994 Assembly elections, the community voted against Congress. This was the time When BSY emerged as the face of the Lingayats. Barring 2013, the BJP had more than 30 Liingayat MLAs in 2004 (32) 2008(39) and 2018( 38)

Yediyurappa has risen from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ranks and was a seven-term member of the Karnataka assembly between 1983 and 2013. He joined the RSS when he was barely 15 and cut his political teeth in the Jana Sangh.

A mass leader who installed the first BJP government in South India in 2008, BSY continues to have his own place in the state, despite the corruption charges and nepotism and voices of dissent.

His meteoric rise in Karnataka was checked in the wake of a land scam that cost him the chief minister’s job. He walked out of the BJP in 2012 to float his outfit, the Karnataka Janta Paksha (KJP), which dealt a severe blow to the BJP in the 2013 assembly elections.

The return of Yediyurappa consolidated the Lingayat vote base again in the 2014 general elections. While dealing with him, the BJP leadership had to keep this in mind.

For the fourth time, he took over as the chief minister in July 2019 after engineering defections of 18 MLAs from Congress and the Janata Dal (S). Then, he had already crossed 76 years. But as before he is facing corruption and nepotism from his party detractors.

With the chief minister drumming up support from the mighty Lingayats mutts the BJP cannot ignore BSY as holding Karnataka is critical for the party before 2023 Assembly polls or the 2024 General elections.

BSY’s innings may be over but if the BJP high command handles him well, being a mass leader, he could still mobilize the Lingayat votes. His successor has a tough job ahead, taking everyone along in a state where factionalism always prevailed. (IPA Service)