In Karnataka, 3 deputy CMs and grooming of next gen leadership | Analysis

Exactly a month after the BS Yediyurappa government was sworn in and a week after he finally managed to get a cabinet approved from the party high command, portfolios have been announced. Beyond the routine allocation of portfolios, the interesting experiment that the BJP has embarked in Karnataka is the appointment of three deputy Chief Ministers.

Increasingly to keep large chunks of party legislators happy, leaders are anointing a number of deputies - witness the five deputy CM’s in Karnataka’s neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

The BJP in Karnataka has announced that Govind Karjol a Dalit, CN Ashwath Narayan Gowda a Vokkaliga and Laxman Savadi a Lingayat would be deputy CM’s. Thus, a signal has been sent to all the three major caste groups in the state that their interests are being taken care of.

More importantly, this is being seen by some as a move by the party high command to groom the next generation of leadership in the state. After all, Yediyurappa, at 76 will have to be eventually replaced.

If that is the case, the choices made for deputy CMishp are strange ones at best. While Laxman Savadi is a close leitunant of Yediyurappa and is a Lingayat - a community which has backed BJP in significant numbers - he could not even win his own seat in the last elections. Currently, he is not a member of either the legislative assembly or the legislative council in Karnataka. He will have to become a member of either house if he has to continue in his current position. In fact Savadi had hit national headlines when he was allegedly spotted watching porn in the assembly while in session and had to resign his ministerial position in a previous cabinet.

Savadi’s elevation is being seen more as an attempt to trim the sails of the ambitious Jharkiholi brothers as well as that of the serial party hopper Katti brothers who come from the same Belgavi district as him.

Ashwath Narayan’s elevation as a deputy CM is being seen as a reward for the role he played in sequestering the now-disqualified ‘rebel’ MLAs of Congress and JDS. A Vokkaliga and a physician who has become a minister for the first time, Ashwath Narayan has extensive commercial and business interests. He is expected to woo the Vokkaligas who have never tuned into BJP’s charms if the party’s performance in seats dominated by them is any indication. Also Ashwath Narayan doesn’t have the gravitas of a Deve Gowda or a Kumaraswamy of JDS or even a DK Shiva Kumar from Congress, the rival claimaints from competing parties for Vokkaliga leadership.

Govind Karjol, while loyal to the BJP and a promninent Dalit face, is no pan-Karnataka leader. At best, his influence is confined to parts of Northern Karnataka. But he is seen as a non-controversial choice.

It is not the first time that the BJP is experimenting with the deputy CM post in its Southern beach-head. In the 2008-2013 BJP government, R Ashoka and K S Eshwarappa were both made deputy CMs. Incidentally both of them are again ministers in the current cabinet.

The decision to nominate Nalin Kumar Kateel - a darling of the Sangh Parivar from the coastal belt but considered as not a mass leader – to lead the party in the state to replace Yediyurappa is an indication that the saffron party wants to clearly groom the next generation of its leaders.

How the BJP cadre and the voters at large accept these new set of leaders is something only time will tell. For the present though, all it has done is set off a lot of heartburn amongst veterans in the party.