BSY is Karnataka BJP’s face in the battle for power. The party doesn’t want signs of its past mistake to re-emerge.
FIVE years ago, when the BJP went to elections in Karnataka as the ruling party, things were at the party’s ebb—a ‘suicidal moment’ as one insider put it. Its voteshare had fragmented into three pieces and its image severely dented, in stark contrast to a Modi wave sweeping across the country at the time. In the years since, the graph of its best known face in Karnataka has been on the upswing: B.S. Yeddyurappa clawed his way back into the party to become its state chief. Now, as the rhyming slogan goes, the ‘Vikas Jodi’ (pair) in Karnataka is ‘YeddyurappaModi’.
The reasons for that are pretty obvious. The 75-yer-old Lingayat leader, a former chief minister, has significant clout among his community members who form 17 percent of the electorate. Yeddyurappa is easily the only state leader in the BJP with a mass appeal cutting across communities. He is a tireless campaigner, having criss-crossed the state several times over the past year. So, the BJP insisted that the unofficial age limit of 75 years, which it applied to other veterans, wasn’t relevant in Yeddyurappa’s case. Of course, the ‘baggage’ from his previous ruling stint still dogs him, making him vulnerable to the taunts from the main rival, CM Siddaramaiah, much as the BJP stresses that Yeddyurappa has been cleared in all the corruption cases against him.
Denne historien er fra April 23, 2018-utgaven av Outlook.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra April 23, 2018-utgaven av Outlook.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
No Singular Self
Sudarshan Shetty's work questions the singularity of identity
Mass Killing
Genocide or not, stop the massacre of Palestinians
Passing on the Gavel
The higher judiciary must locate its own charter in the Constitution. There should not be any ambiguity
India Reads Korea
Books, comics and webtoons by Korean writers and creators-Indian enthusiasts welcome them all
The K-kraze
A chronology of how the Korean cultural wave(s) managed to sweep global audiences
Tapping Everyday Intimacies
Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo departs from his outsized national cinema with low-budget, chatty dramedies
Tooth and Nail
The influence of Korean cinema on Bollywood aesthetics isn't matched by engagement with its deeper themes as scene after scene of seemingly vacuous violence testify, shorn of their original context
Beyond Enemy Lines
The recent crop of films on North-South Korea relations reflects a deep-seated yearning for the reunification of Korea
Ramyeon Mogole?
How the Korean aesthetic took over the Indian market and mindspace
Old Ties, Modern Dreams
K-culture in Tamil Nadu is a very serious pursuit for many