BS Yediyurappa
By Shankar Raj*
Bengaluru: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leadership has once again snubbed former chief minister BS Yediyurappa by not giving a ticket to his son BY Vijayendra for the Legislative Council elections. Though Yediyurappa had lobbied strongly for his son, the BJP central leadership went by the rule book by not promoting dynasty politics.
With civic bodies and panchayats polls round the corner and the Assembly elections in early 2023, the BJP, Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) opted for social engineering and rewarded its party workers for the seven seats.
Based on the numerical strength of its members in the Assembly, the BJP has fielded four candidates and the tickets have been given to people belonging to Panchamashali Lingayat, Backward Class, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.
The BJP today announced the names of Laxman Savadi (former Deputy Chief Minister, Panchamasali Lingayat), S Keshava Prasad (Backward Class), Chaluvadi Narayanaswamy (Scheduled Caste) and Hemalatha Nayak (Scheduled Tribe).
Amid infighting between Opposition leader Siddaramaiah and the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president DK Sivakumar, the Congress high command went in for compromise candidates and named two low-profile candidates, affiliated to each camp — K Abdul Jabbar (Muslim) and M Nagaraju Yadav (Backward Class); JD(S) has announced the name of TA Saravana (Backward Class).
The MLC polls are being held next month for seven seats that will fall vacant on June 16. 224 MLAs will elect the MLCs. The Congress with 69 MLAs is sure to get two candidates elected; the BJP can elect four MLCs with 121 MLAs; and JD(S), with 32 MLAs, can look forward to getting one MLC elected.
