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Karnataka:Challenges, hurdles mark 100 days of Bommai at the helm
Basavaraj Bommai was a surprise choice to replace BS Yediyurappa who was forced to step down on July 26 after nearly two years of uncertainty
Bengaluru The Basavaraj Bommai government will complete 100 days in power on Thursday, however the road leading to it was not so smooth as the chief minister had to face dissent from within the party, pressure from the Panchamasalis over reservation, infrastructure issues and the recently concluded bypolls in two constituencies.
Bommai was a surprise choice to replace BS Yediyurappa who was forced to step down on July 26 after nearly two years of uncertainty.
“(There is) nothing special in 100 days but we will share what we have done during this time. 100 days is not like some benchmark like one year. During this time, how our government is moving forward, what problems we are facing is something we will share with the people,” Bommai said on Wednesday in Bengaluru.
The problems Bommai referred to possibly includes the challenges he faces from within his own party’s state leadership who felt “betrayed” for being overlooked for that top job with a person who joined the BJP just 13 years ago as against those who have grown up in the party and spent decades building it.
Bommai’s 100-day benchmark comes a day after he suffered a humiliating defeat in his own backyard after Srinivas Mane of the Congress defeated Shivaraj Sajjanar of the BJP in Hanagal in the chief minister’s home district of Haveri.
A section within the BJP says that the defeat was engineered by some leaders themselves as they did not want to enhance Bommai’s image in front of the national leadership.
A Bengaluru-based analyst said that there was little to suggest that any one person or section of leaders could pull off such a stunt to bring down the party to settle personal scores.
“In a bypoll such tactics become harder as there is extensive focus on just a couple of constituencies and it is more difficult to pull off such stunts,” said one analyst, requesting not to be named.
The simmering dissent within the leadership boiled over when union home minister Amit Shah projected Bommai as the next chief ministerial candidate on September 2 in Davangere.
Bommai has also been unsuccessful in emerging out of the shadows of Yediyurappa who is still believed to hold the reins of the government. Most of Yediyurappa’s loyalists were inducted in the Cabinet while all his detractors were kept out.
Bommai continues to rely on Yediyurappa for his day-to-day operations and BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel, in a recent statement, had said that the party will head to the next elections under the leadership of the incumbent chief minister and his predecessor.
The chief minister is also under pressure over the Panchamasali agitation, demanding to be moved up to 2A category in the state reservation list.
Vijayananda Kashappanavar, former Congress MLA and president of the Akhila Bharatha Lingayata Panchamasali Mahasabha said that the BJP is yet to heed to its reservation request.
“We have already started mobilising support at the grama panchayat level and will not stop until we the order of the reservation reaches the district and local offices,” Kashappanavar said.
An influential seer of the Panchamasalis, the largest sub-sect under the Lingayats, had even issued a veiled threat ahead of the October 30 bypolls, asking that the report of reservation be brought from the backward classes commission.
The sub-sect have given three months to the Bommai government to heed to its demands or that they will revive the agitation again. Even the marginalised and backward communities have approached the courts to release the findings of the 2015 caste census and block any proposal to allow the Panchamasalis into the 2A category which would further deny benefits to groups who have long since lost out due to the presence of dominant communities within their categories.
But one of the bigger challenges staring Bommai is the allegations levelled by Congress Siddaramaiah over purchases of Bitcoins to the tune of several thousand crores.
“He (Siddaramaiah) has made the allegations so he should reveal any proof if he has. Secondly we have filed the chargesheet in court and it is a public document,” Bommai said on Wednesday.
