BENGALURU: The recent cabinet expansion reaffirmed an age-old political principle: there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. Chief minister BS Yediyurappa inducted Umesh V Katti and Murgesh R Nirani into his team and promoted home minister Basavaraj Bommai by giving him another plum portfolio, law & parliamentary affairs, eight years after the three reneged on a promise to join his new party and left him resentful.
The episode weighed on Yediyurappa’s mind even after he rejoined BJP in 2014 and he declared that he would keep the three, along with V Somanna, at bay. But the political reality of the day forced him to repair the equation. Somanna is the housing minister in the Yediyurappa government.
Like Yediyurappa, Bommai, Katti, Nirani and Somanna belong to the Lingayat community. They were close to Yeddyurappa in 2011, when he was forced to quit as the chief minister over allegations of corruption. A year later, Yediyurappa formed a new party, Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), and invited the four, who were then ministers in the Jagadish Shettar government, to come on board. He believed a Lingayat-dominated KJP would give BJP a run for its money in the 2013 assembly elections, especially in North Karnataka.
After agreeing to the plan, Bommai, Katti, Nirani and Somanna had second thoughts and stayed put, contesting the elections on the BJP ticket. Yediyurappa still managed to cut into BJP’s votes in the region, indirectly helping Congress win the polls. He later returned to BJP and renewed ties with Bommai and Somanna, who were appointed as ministers in 2019. Bommai, who was tasked with addressing the intellectual crisis in Karnataka BJP, gradually became Yediyurappa’s most trusted lieutenant. Katti and Nirani, who were seen close to Yediyurappa’s rivals within the party, were kept out of the government.
The two finally landed roles in the third cabinet expansion last week, though their portfolios, mining & geology and food & civil supplies, are not considered high-profile. Nirani was the industries minister and Katti headed the agriculture department in Yediyurappa’s first cabinet that was formed in 2008. Curiously, Yediyurappa loyalists JC Madhuswamy, MP Renukacharya and CM Udasi, who had joined KJP, have not got a good deal either.
On Katti and Nirani’s cabinet re-entry, a functionary said: “Had Yediyurappa refused to induct them again, they could have formed a rebellion group under Basanagouda Patil Yatnal. By inducting the two, Yediyurappa has thwarted attempts to replace him.”