Bengaluru: A group of rebel leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to make an impassioned appeal to the party’s top brass to review its decision to expel Basanagouda Patil Yatnal.
The firebrand MLA was expelled from the party for six years over his relentless criticism of former Karnataka chief minister B. S. Yediyurappa and his son, state BJP chief B. Y. Vijayendra.
Since Yatnal’s expulsion Wednesday, there has been a wave of protests for and against the decision with prominent seers and political leaders weighing in.
“Yatnal’s expulsion has impacted Hindu groups, party workers, and all of us are pained by it. But this does not mean that we challenge or oppose the decision taken by our national leaders,” Kumar Bangarppa, a former BJP legislator and core member of the rebel faction, told reporters Friday.
Members of the rebel faction, including G. M. Siddeshwara, B. P. Harish, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Bangarappa and Yediyurappa’s grand nephew N. R. Santosh, met in Bengaluru Friday to discuss the next course of action after Yatnal’s expulsion.
Bangarappa said the faction will reach out to top BJP leaders, individually and collectively, to ask them to reconsider the decision since Yatnal was only raising issues to strengthen the party and hold those in responsible positions accountable.
The former legislator even said that they will take the help of legal and political advisers as well as think tanks to draft a response to the show cause notice issued to Harish.
The BJP is facing a string of rebellion–or indiscipline–from several leaders across states like Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka and other places. It has issued show-cause notices to at least seven leaders in just the past week, including five in Karnataka and taking action against Yatnal.
Analysts and political observers say that Yatnal is trying hard to get back into the BJP fold since the other existing political parties cannot accommodate the firebrand leader, nor his politics.
‘Caste & sub-caste’
Yatnal briefly joined former PM H.D.Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) in 2012 but returned just as swiftly to the BJP a year later. The JD(S) is now a key ally of the BJP, and H.D.Kumaraswamy serves in PM Narendra Modi’s cabinet.
Ramzan Darga, writer, analyst and expert on Lingayat philosophy, said that Yatnal has a limited influence in Karnataka and the BJP decided that it was better to retain Yediyurappa.
“The BJP is not pro or against anyone. For them, it matters that under whom the party will survive and grow. Many voters in Karnataka are not independent thinkers but are bonded by caste and sub-caste. So, the party will retain those people it thinks will be of use to them,” Darga said.
Basava Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swami, a prominent seer of the Panchamsali sub-sect of Lingayats, has warned of agitation if Yatnal’s expulsion is not withdrawn. Yatnal has become the political face of the Panchamasalis, the biggest sub-sect within the dominant Lingayat community, demanding better reservation opportunities in Karnataka.
Yatnal, however, cannot claim to be a leader of the entire Lingayat community like Yediyurappa, making the latter much more important as the caste group are among the most loyal and core supporters of the BJP.
“His (Yatnal) politics does not allow him to go anywhere else. He did try the JD(S), I wonder if he’d go back there. But that is a possibility because JD(S) can take extremes of all kinds. That’s the way the party is structured,” Bengaluru-based political analyst Narendra Pani said.
With over two years remaining for the next assembly elections, Yatnal needn’t take any decision like forming another outfit or turning independent, analysts add.
He added that if Yatnal has a good relationship with the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government, he can manage to get funds for his constituency and by the time of the next elections, be taken back by the BJP.
Kumar Bangarappa, meanwhile, ruled out that any member of the rebel faction will either leave the BJP or consider forming a new party.
Given Karnataka’s political history and voting behaviour that largely goes against Independents or breakaway factions, Yatnal is likely to wait it out and hope to be reinducted into his parent party. Even the likes of K.S.Eshwarappa were unable to make any significant impact by going independent. Other sidelined leaders like Ananth Kumar Hegde, D.V.Sadananda Gowda, Prathap Simha, Nalin Kumar Kateel have chosen to keep to themselves.
Historically too, Karnataka political landscape has not been very accommodating of new outfits. In fact, the Gowda-led JD(S) is the only one that has survived in Karnataka even though it faces an existential crisis, forcing it to align with the BJP.
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‘Contradictory interest, imaginations’
It’s not like others have not tried to form their own party in the past. Yediyurappa himself broke away from the BJP in 2012 and formed Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) only to merge it back a year later.
Devaraj Urs, one of the most popular and longest serving CMs of Karnataka, made two attempts to start a regional outfit between 1979 and 1982. Both times, it had little long-term impact. Several other leaders like A.K.Subbiah, S.Bangarappa, B.Sriramulu and Gali Janardhana Reddy started new political parties, but these outfits are non-existent or have merged with either of the two national parties.
In his 2017 paper titled ‘Experiential regionalism and political processes in south India’, political analyst Narendra Pani says that a successful Karnataka politician has to aggregate several contradictory interests and imaginations in the light of increased competition for commercialized vote banks
‘Interests & imaginations’
According to most analysts, only Siddaramaiah and Yediyurappa are considered mass leaders in Karnataka since even the likes of Deve Gowda have little or no support in the northern districts of the state.
“Karnataka has not had a single leader who could claim support in most, let alone all, geographical regions of the state. Devaraj Urs and Deve Gowda had their support concentrated in the old Mysore region. Ramakrishna Hegde was believed to have support in north Karnataka based on the trust the Lingayat caste is said to have had in him, but his efforts to present himself as a state leader did not last,” Pani argues in his paper.
Pani said that in Tamil Nadu too, the BJP has been warming up to its estranged ally, All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) before the state goes to the polls next year. He said that in both Yatnal’s case and in Tamil Nadu, the BJP may have assessed that high-pitched Hindutva alone may not help them win and tweak its strategy.
Yatnal’s expulsion may have stemmed from the same thinking, analysts say.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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