Yediyurappa retirement: BJP was a cow-belt party, having a strong presence in the Hindi-belt, struggling to expand its footsteps in the south when BS Yediyurappa took the baton. Yediyurappa led a hardscrabble fight to make BJP a force to reckon with in Karnataka. Drawing support from the Lingayat vote bank and delivering what promised made him the leader of the masses. As Yediyurappa quits electoral politics, Karnataka would be a tough nut for the BJP to crack.
BS Yediyurappa bids adieu to electoral politics
“I wish my father had contested one last time. Without him, BJP is without a face and it is a challenge,” said BY Vijayendra, the son of veteran BJP leader BS Yediyurappa as he stepped down from electoral politics, passing the baton to his sons. The multiple-term chief minister BS Yediyurappa announced his retirement from active politics, ahead of the crucial assembly elections in the state.
The four term CM announced that he would work for the BJP till his last breath. “Till the last breath of my life I will honestly strive for building BJP and to bring it to power, let there be no doubts about it,” Yediyurappa told the assembly in his retirement speech. The 79-year-old Lingayat strongman has also asked the community to continue supporting the BJP.
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After retirement Yediyurappa asks Lingayat to continue supporting BJP
The opposition like the Congress and Kumaraswamy’s JD(S) are trying to portray that Yediyurappa is being side-lined in the state to gain the votes of numerically dominant Lingayat community; the veteran leader himself discarded the narrative.
Saying that he is voluntarily retiring from electoral politics, he asked the community to continue supporting the BJP. Yediyurappa said, “With folded hands, I request the Veershaiva-Lingayat community to continue supporting me and help the BJP win the next elections.”
Karnataka without Yediyurappa would be a tough game for the BJP
Opposition parties in the state have been harping on the alleged “mistreatment” of the Lingayat strongman. It is also been said in the past that BSY was made to step down from the CM post “with tears in his eyes”. But that doesn’t seem to be working for the opposition parties as JD(S) has lost its ground in the Old-Mysuru belt and Congress is marred with infightings.
But, without Yediyurappa, the man who took ahead BJP’s banner in south-India, it would be hard for the saffron party to crack the hard nut called Karnataka, as in the southern-India, personality matters more than party. Also, Yediyurappa had never been dispensable. Thus, it’s for sure that Yediyurappa would be seen as the star-campaigner for the party in the upcoming elections.
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