Karnataka: The Karnataka government has reiterated its intention to name the soon-to-be-inaugurated Shivamogga airport after former chief minister BS Yediyurappa as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeks to woo the Lingayat strongman ahead of this year’s state elections.
The move signals an attempt to poach Yediyurappa ahead of the election as the BJP struggles to gain traction under Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai in the only southern state it controls.
“The state cabinet has decided to rename Shivamogga airport as BSY Yeddyurappa airport and a proposal to this effect will be sent to the Government of India,” Bommai said in a statement on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the airport on February 27, which will be his fifth visit to Karnataka since the second week of January.
In April last year, Bommai had named the Shivamogga airport after Yediyurappa, but the former chief minister formally requested that the decision be dropped as it would not be ‘suitable’.
Ahead of the elections, Yediyurappa’s younger son, BY Vijayendra, the state vice-president of the BJP, was given additional responsibilities as he was named as the committee chief, who would oversee organizing conventions in all 224 assembly constituencies. Vijayendra is likely to replace his father as the party’s candidate from Shikaripura in Shivamogga.
This is likely to be part of a strategy not to further anger its senior-most leader, who is forced to step down as chief minister in July 2021.
Last year, the BJP decided not to nominate Vijayendra for the MLC polls in May and promoted Yediyurappa to the party’s parliamentary board in August. were there reports That the BJP’s top leadership decided not to field Vijayendra in the MLC election as it had planned to field him in the Karnataka election and had planned to give him a bigger role as an attractive move.
Though BJP has formed government in Karnataka twice in 2008 and 2019, it has formed never He got majority on his own. In such a situation, Yeddyurappa is very important for BJP because with his full participation, BJP can get support. LingayatWho have threatened Bommai to walk away from the party after he failed on his promises to resolve reservation related demands.
(Edited by Tony Rae)