At last, BSY walks out of BJP, quits assembly

At last, BSY walks out of BJP, quits assembly

Negotiators Fail To Woo Him; No Threat To BJP Govt

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore/New Delhi: In the end, even a pledge to reinstall him as chief minister if BJP returned to power in the May 2013 Karnataka election did not deter B S Yeddyurappa from leaving the party he helped make a powerhouse in the southern state.
    Yeddyurappa’s exit from the saffron fold on Friday and his impending coronation as president of Karnataka Janata Party on December 9 is a heavy blow for BJP as it looks to mount a comeback bid for the 2014 national election seeking to ride on its powerful state satraps and UPA-2’s record on corruption and the economy.
    There is no immediate threat to the BJP government in Karnataka and the party’s Lok Sabha contingent is also unlikely to experience any ripples just yet, but the party is bound to suffer a crucial loss of momentum as Yeddyurappa was a key vote catcher in the state.
    Although the next national election is still some way off, BJP leaders would have been reminded of BJD chief Naveen Patnaik’s shock exit just ahead of the 2009 polls. With BJP banking on state bosses such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh, Narendra Modi, Vasundhara Raje and Prem Kumar Dhumal to pull in the votes, Yeddyurappa will be missed.
    Aware that his departure will blow a hole in its southern strategy and hobble it in a state that yielded a rich harvest of 19 Lok Sabha MPs in 2009, BJP negotiators tried hard to dissuade Yeddyurappa. But they found it hard to meet his demand to be made state chief while an IOU for the CM’s post did not work.
    Damage in Karnataka cannot be wished away as BJP is staring at the desertion of the Lingayat vote it carefully nurtured after the community’s disenchantment with Congress. Now, the politically significant community could leave BJP’s game plan in shambles.
    Chief minister Jagadish Shettar is a Lingayat too, but does not command the same support and is not likely to be a match for Yeddyurappa.
    BJP leaders rue that the bar was set high for Yeddyurappa after he was named in the Lokayukta report in illegal mining. But having made corruption a major issue, the party had to force Yeddyurappa to quit, something he never forgave the party bosses for.
    The party has not ruled out the possibility of Yeddyurappa returning to the fold after the 2013 state election, but this is a long shot. Powerful satraps who have parted ways with BJP have not always returned and those who did are often misfits.