The importance of being Shobha Karandlaje

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Bangalore: Shobha Karandlaje, Karnataka rural development minister and the only woman in Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s Cabinet, once again finds herself in the middle of a crisis. The Reddy brothers seem to have added her removal from the ministry to their main aim of dislodging Yeddyurappa.

Karandlaje whose fortunes have risen along with Yeddyurappa’s, has figured in the power struggles between Yeddyurappa and his rivals within the party. Many political rivals have used the apparent proximity of the 67-year-old Yeddyurappa to the 44-year-old Karandlaje to target him.

With many key political decisions being monitored by her, there has been sniping about her becoming de facto chief minister.

A native of Puttur in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada, until five years ago Karandlaje was a little known party worker. When Yeddyurappa became deputy chief minister in the JD(S)-BJP government in 2006-07, he used his good offices, amid opposition from BJP party circles, to ensure that Karandlaje was elected a member of the state legislative council.

In the 2008 Assembly polls Karandlaje was a surprise BJP candidate from the Yeshwanthpur assembly constituency on the outskirts of Bangalore. She won the seat.

With Yeddyurappa, who spearheaded the BJP victory on the back of a sympathy wave for the party after being ditched by the JD(S), becoming the natural choice for chief minister, Karandlaje also got the plum post of rural development minister.