By BD Naraayannkar
Bengaluru, Mar 24 (UNI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday sent a strong message to rival parties by accepting a bouquet from BY Vijayendra before requesting BS Yediyurappa to hand it over to his son.
The political pundits, who closely follow BJP, are interpreting this gesture by Shah as an informal "succession ceremony" of handing over the baton to Vijayendra after Yediyurappa's retirement from electoral politics.
It is a practice in the BJP that tallest party leaders are welcomed by the presidents of the state party units with a bouquet or a rose. So, speculations around Vijyendra getting "larger role in the party" is but natural.
In fact Yediyurappa had also announced vacating his Shikaripura assembly seat to Vijayendra pending approval of the central party leadership.
As soon as Shah alighted from his car at Yediyurappa's residence, he requests Yediyurappa, who is waiting to welcome him with a bouquet, to hand it over to his Vijayendra.
At first instance, Yediyurappa seems to have not heard Shah properly, but hands the bouquet after Shah's insistence. Shah then pats Vijayendra and accepts the bouquet from him.
Vijayendra deserves this pride of place bestowed on him by Shah. He has demonstrated his political acumen in shouldering the responsibility of leading BJP to victory in many by-elections. His election strategy had also surprised his seniors too.
Vijayendra has already proved himself once with vorer engagement tactics. He oversaw Mandya's Krishnarajpet (KR Pete) constituency by-election in 2019, guiding poached MLA Narayana Gowda to a win. This was a blow to former PM HD Devegowda family since it was unimaginable for the BJP to break the KR Pete fort.
Vijayendra implemented voter engagement tactics yet again in Sira and made history by guiding BJP to victory for the first time in Karnataka electoral history.
Coming out trumps in Sira is commendable, because the constituency is dominated by Vokkaliga and Lingayats to which community Vijayendra belongs hardly has 5,000 votes out of the total 2.5 lakh votes, with Vokkaligas forming the largest community with 60,000 votes, the SCs with 50,000 and the Gollas with around 30,000 votes followed by the Kurubas, who have 13,000 votes, and STs, 15,000.
Vijayendra's efforts were praiseworthy because Congress had all its bigwigs planted and positioned in the constituency all through with the then Chief Minister Yediyurappa being far from the scene until the eve of the elections.
From meeting individuals and community leaders to seers of all the influential mutts, as well as door-to-door campaigning, were the part of Vijayendra's voter engagement tactics.
Breaching the wall of JDS fortress by winning Sira byelection was a case of a second-rung leader making a strong case for himself and his winnability prospects to the party's central leadership, and Shah today may have informally recognised Vijayendra's calibre to keep Karnataka as gateway of the South.
UNI BDN GNK