The smile is back on Karnataka CM BS Yeddyurappa?s face as he staged his second comeback in two months. As Karnataka?s political drama unravelled over the past week, it looked as though the BJP?s first CM in the South was headed towards the exit. Allegations of illegal land transactions favouring his family were seen as difficult to side-step. But in two days, the signals from the party swung from action against the CM to giving him another lease of life. While most political watchers thought it was curtains for him, he convinced the BJP central leadership of his need to continue in power.
Yeddyurappa began the previous week on a defensive note, saying that denotification of land and allocation of sites under a discretionary quota was nothing that his predecessors did not do. Mid-week, as the pressure on him to quit mounted, his family surrendered housing and industrial plots. All the while, the Opposition pulled out details of several more alleged land transactions. The risk of losing its first government in the South is seen to be the factor that clinched it for Yeddyurappa, who drummed up support from religious leaders of his community. The Lingayats are the state?s largest voting community. Yeddyurappa is seen as Lingayats? dominant leader who was voted to power on a wave of sympathy after being ?betrayed? by the Janata Dal (Secular) in 2007. For Yeddyurappa, it has been a close shave on both occasions. In October, he faced a vote of confidence triggered by a rebellion in the party?s state unit before the flurry of accusations of illegal land transactions started.
Armed with the reprieve, Yeddyurappa?s key task now would be Zilla and Taluk Panchayat elections due in the state, but the BJP has said it would look into the allegations against him, in addition to the judicial inquiry that Yeddyurappa has already ordered. The judicial probe would look into illegalities in the denotification of land and allotment of housing and industrial plots. But it would cover a period of 15 years from 1995, when HD Deve Gowda was the state?s CM.