Why Yeddyurappa Feels Betrayed

It was February 19 this year. Two ministers had already been caught watching porn clippings in the Karnataka Assembly and the issue was blown ‘out of proportion by the media’. Some media representative in Shimoga compelled Yeddyurappa to respond on the issue and he literally blew hot and cold at the media:  “Everybody watches them. Don’t you watch them at home?” The thing is that all the Porngate accused happened to be his supporters!

 There was another incident in March 2011. BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar and BJP state unit president KS Eeswharappa, both being his rivals in the party from day one, were holding a meeting with some 57 rebel BJP MLAs in the party office in Bangalore without the knowledge of the then CM Yeddyurappa. Somehow the CM came to know about it. The next moment, he breezed through the meeting and breezed out, anger overflowing on his face. Media representatives blocked his car just as he was about to leave. Suddenly, an angry Yeddy hit his car driver in front of media representatives and their cameras.
Yeddyurappa has always been seen in two extremes: either emitting fury like the above two instances or crying like an abandoned child on the street.

Supporters of Yeddyurappa worship him. A highly ambitious angry young man cherishing in his heart a dream of political revolution roams village after village on his motorcycle, organises the masses, brings them into the fold of his party that then had little or no impact on state politics with its negligible presence, gradually builds the party with strong cadre force at the grassroots level, becomes his party’s first elected representative in the lower house of the Karnataka Legislature, becomes the party’s first Leader of Opposition in the state assembly and finally, after four decades of such efforts, brings his party to power and becomes the chief minister of the first BJP government in South India. But how long was he allowed to hold on to the CM’s seat? Just three years! Forty years of party-building and three years as chief minister! And    no hope for future as well. This is, perhaps, the source of his anger and desperation – and of his supporters too.

Another important reason for his anger is that he had never been allowed to function and do what he wanted as the CM. He faced three-dimensional attacks throughout his tenure: firstly from his own party men who used to gang up on  him on a monthly basis; secondly from HD Kumaraswamy of JD(S) who literally haunted him as a nightmare by unearthing one land scam after another on weekly basis involving Yeddy and thirdly from HR Bharadwaj, who left no stone unturned to threaten to dissolve the assembly and impose President's rule using his constitutional power as the Governor of the state. No chief minister, perhaps, has ever faced such multi-pronged attacks in the history of Karnataka. The second and third aspects can be understood and tolerated. What made him particularly furious was the fact that his own party men tried their best to pull him down more than any of the Opposition parties and eventually succeeded in their efforts.
Just have a glance at the revolts and conspiracies that his colleagues tailored against Yeddy during his three-year tenure as the CM. Soon after he was sworn in as Chief Minister in 2008, senior leader Jagadish Shettar revolted against Yeddy protesting the denial of any ministerial berth for him. Yeddy, as a seasoned politician, had cleverly offered Shettar the Speaker's post denying him any ministerial berth. On the other hand, juniors and newcomers like Basavaraj Bommai were given vital ministerial berths. The reason was not difficult to be understood. Both Yeddy and Shettar hail from the same Lingayat community that has been dominant in Karnataka politics.

Yeddy, apart from being established as a BJP leader, has been viewed as the leader of the Lingayat community. And he did not want another leader like Shettar to come up in his own community  and threaten him one day in the future. Shettar revolted against Yeddy’s designs. With the backing of long-established rivals of Yeddy, Shettar’s revolt gained momentum. But Yeddy was so powerful that he couldn’t be shaken. In fact, Yeddy’s tenure as chief minister commenced with this revolt and he continued to feel the heat of revolt after revolt till the last minute of his tenure. At times it went to such an extent that if anybody wanted more power and position, he would gang up with similar people, go to resorts and threaten Yeddy to topple his government if his demands were not met.

 Adding fuel to the fire, Justice Santosh Hegde, the then Lokayukta of Karnataka, drove the last nail in his coffin by indicting Yeddy and his sons in his final report on illegal mining. In fact, it had become a fatal weapon not only in the hands of the Opposition, but also in the hands of his own partymen who had been trying to pull him down. Yeddy was so angry with Justice Santosh Hegde that he had once publicly said, “In his bid to grab a good position at the Centre, he indicted me."

 And more importantly, the ‘betrayal’ of his own trusted men infuriated him more than anything else. When he was left with no option but to relinquish chief ministership and go to jail on corruption charges, he installed his ‘trusted ally’ DV Sadananda Gowda in his stead, prevailing upon his strong enemies in the party, including his longtime rival Ananth Kumar who disapproved of Gowda’s candidature and put forward Jagadish Shettar for the post. A publicly annoyed BJP high command, perhaps for the first time in its history, had to go for internal election to finalize the CM candidate. And Yeddyurappa did everything under the sun and successfully defeated the Shettar camp and made Sadananda Gowda the 26th chief minister of Karnataka.

 But what happened after that was exactly opposite of what Yeddy expected. Yeddy made Sadananda Gowda chief minister allegedly on the latter’s promise that he would resign as and when the former desired so that he could reassume power as chief minister. Forget about resigning, Gowda preferred to enjoy power as long as possible and did everything quite contrary to what Yeddy expected him to. Observers mention that Sadananda Gowda’s open defiance enraged Yeddy. And Yeddy wanted ‘the betrayer’ to be replaced. Yeddy didn’t allow him to complete even one year as chief minister. Pressured by the Yeddy camp, the BJP high command asked Sadanada Gowda to resign. But the national leaders didn’t bend to Yeddy’s pressure to reinstate him as chief minister due to the corruption charges and CBI cases. Interestingly, Yeddy handpicked Jagadish Shettar (who had been sidelined and curbed by Yeddy all these years and who revolted several times against Yeddy) to replace Sadananda Gowda.

 And lastly, Yeddy is also angry with the BJP high command, particularly LK Advani and Nitin Gadkari. He has several times expressed his sorrow and anger over the national leaders acting upon the directions of his rivals in the state, not taking into account his contributions to building the party in the state. Ever since he came out of jail on bail, he had been trying to get either the CM post or at least become party president in the state. But the BJP high command didn’t bend to his pressure. Being behind bars, he had forced all his supporters to boycott the public meeting of LK Advani when he came to Karnataka. After quitting the BJP to form Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), he is reported to have said: “Sonia is better than Gadkari.”

 “The main reason for Yeddy’s anger is betrayal by his own party leaders. He has strived for 40 years to build the party in the state. He shepherded the BJP to power in the state and many of the leaders who were not able to become even MLAs enjoyed power as ministers. Now they are betraying him. Both Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar became CMs because of Yeddyurappa. And these state leaders, including Ananth Kumar, KS Eeshwarappa, Shettar and Gowda, misled the high command and forced Yeddy to quit the party he himself built,” says a senior pro-Yeddy minister on condition of anonymity. He, along with other ministers and MLAs, are all set to resign and join KJP as and when Yeddy wants.