B S Yeddyurappa

Personal life

Yeddyurappa was born on 27 February 1943 in a village called Bookanakere in K.R.Pet taluk of Mandya district. His parents were Siddalingappa and Puttathayamma. He was named after the presiding deity of a Shaivite temple built by the great saint Siddalingeshwara at Yediyur in Tumkuru district. His mother died when he was four. He completed his Pre-University College education from PES college, mandya.

In 1965, he was appointed as a first-division clerk in the social welfare department but he quit the job and moved to Shikaripura where he joined as a clerk at Veerabhadra Shastri's Shankar rice mill. In 1967, Yeddyurappa married Mythradevi, the daughter of the rice mill owner. He later set up a hardware shop in Shivamogga. Yeddyurappa has two sons, Raghavendra, currently member of Karnataka Legislative Assembly representing Shikaripur Assembly Constituency and Vijayendra and three daughters, Arunadevi, Padmavati and Umadevi. In 2004, his wife died after falling into a sump while drawing water. In 2007, he changed the spelling of his name to its current spelling from the earlier "Yediyurappa" following the advice of his astrologers. He is a follower of Lingayatism.

Political career

Having been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from his college days, Yeddyurappa's public service began when he was appointed as Karyavaha (Secretary) of the Sangh's Shikaripur unit in 1970. In 1972, he was elected to the Shikaripura Town Municipality and was also appointed as the President of the Taluk unit of the Jana Sangh. In 1975, he was elected President of the Town Municipality of Shikaripura. He was imprisoned during the Emergency in India and lodged in the Bellary and Shimoga jails. In 1980, he was appointed President of the Shikaripura taluk unit of the BJP and later went on to become the president of BJP's Shimoga district unit in 1985. In 1988, he became the State President of the BJP in Karnataka. He was first elected to the lower house of the Karnataka Legislature in 1983 and has since represented the Shikaripura constituency six times. He has been a member of the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth and Thirteenth Legislative Assemblies (lower house) of Karnataka. Following the 1994 state assembly elections, he became the Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. In 1999, he lost the elections but was nominated by the BJP to become a member of the legislative council (upper house) of Karnataka. Again, he was re-elected in 2004 and became the Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly during the chief ministership of Dharam Singh.

His first stint in power when he helped was Janata Dal (Secular) leader H. D. Kumaraswamy to bring down the coalition government headed by Dharam Singh and form an alternative government with BJP. An agreement was made between the JD(S) and BJP, which specified that H. D. Kumaraswamy would be the Chief Minister for the first 20 months, after which Yeddyurappa would become the Chief Minister for the remaining 20 months. Yeddyurappa became the Deputy Chief Minister as well as the finance minister in Kumaraswamy's Government. He was credited with presenting good budgets and for initiating various welfare programs such as the Bhagyalakshmi scheme, bicycles for students, a ban on arrack and farm loan waivers.

However, in October 2007, when it was Yeddyurappa's turn to become Chief Minister, Kumaraswamy refused to relinquish his post. This forced Yeddyurappa and all the ministers from his party to resign and on 5 October, the BJP formally withdrew the support to the Kumaraswamy government. Karnataka came under President's rule which was revoked on 7 November as the JD(S) and the BJP decided to bury their differences and this paved the way for Yeddyurappa to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka. Yeddyurappa was sworn in as the 25th Chief Minister of Karnataka on 12 November 2007. However, JD(S) refused to support his government over disagreement on sharing of ministries which resulted in his resignation as Chief Minister on 19 November 2007.

In Karnataka's 2008 Assembly elections, Yeddyurappa contested from Shikaripura against former Chief Minister S. Bangarappa of the Samajwadi Party. The Indian National Congress and JD(S) backed Bangarappa, but despite this, Yeddyurappa won the seat by a margin of more than 45,000 votes. He also led the BJP to a historic victory in the state and Karnataka became the gateway for the BJP in south India. He took the oath of office as Chief Minister on 30 May 2008.

However, the Karnataka Lokayukta investigating the illegal mining case submitted its report indicting Yeddyurappa for illegally profiteering from land deals in Bangalore and Shimoga, and also in connection with the illegal iron ore export scam in Bellary, Tumkur and Chitradurga districts of Karnataka. Following much pressure from the BJP central leadership, he announced his decision to quit. Finally, he resigned on 31 July 2011.

He resigned from his position as Member of Legislative Assembly and primary membership of Bharatiya Janata Party on 30 November 2012, and formally launched the Karnataka Janata Paksha. Although the party and its name were registered in April 2011, Yeddyurappa actually launched it in 2012. He is elected as MLA from Shikaripura Constituency (Shivamogga district) in 2013 May.

In November 2013, it was announced that he was considering an unconditional return to the BJP. On 2 January 2014 he announced merger with BJP ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He won from the Shimoga seat of Karnataka in the Indian general election, 2014 by a margin of 363,305 votes.

Current Political Role

BJP has re-appointed him as the President of Karnataka state BJP unit.

After the high court quashed former governor HR Bhardwaj’s sanction to prosecute BS Yeddyurappa, a special Lokayukta court on Monday struck down four other FIRs against him. Earlier last week, in a major relief to Yeddyurappa and BJP, Karnataka High Court had set aside the sanction given by then Governor HR Bhardwaj for his prosecution in several cases of alleged illegal de-notification of land, and asked the incumbent Vajubhai Vala to have a fresh look at it.

The High Court said: Non-consideration of the relevant matters made the order of sanction illegal and resulted in failure of justice. We are thus of the opinion that the exercise of the power by the Governor was not in accordance with well-settled principles for sanctioning prosecution. We accordingly set aside the order of sanction, dated January 21, 2011, and remit the matter back to his Excellency, the Governor for reconsideration in the light of our discussions above.

Allegations were made against him that he had used his official position to favour his sons in the allotment of land in Bangalore. One acre of land at Rachenahalli in Bangalore was purchased by his family for Rs 4million (approx US$95,000) and was re-sold to a mining company for Rs. 200million ($4.8 million), resulting a significant profit. To refute the charges, Yeddyurappa declared his assets estimated at Rs. 53.8million – including 2.5 kg of gold and 76 kg of silver – to show that neither he nor his family members were involved in any financial irregularities. His assets were declared to be Rs. 18.2million in 2008, indicating a 292% increase in three years.

In January 2011, two lawyers of the Karnataka High Court Sirajin Basha and K N Balraj approached the Governor seeking his permission to prosecute Chief minister Yeddyurappa and the Governor H.R. Bhardwaj sanctioned their request.

The Lokayukta report submitted on 27 July 2011 stated that there is sufficient evidence to indict Yeddyurappa and recommended his prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act over various land deals. In addition, it also stated that there is evidence to prove that he had granted illegal mining licenses to mining companies and benefited through them. After accepting the Lokayukta report, Governor Bhardwaj again approved the prosecution of Yeddyurappa and the Karnataka High Court also allowed the police to question him.

Yeddyurappa was arrested on the evening of 15 Oct 2011, hours after the lokayukta court issued an arrest warrant in two cases of corruption for illegally denotifying land in and around Bangalore. Later, He was granted bail on 8 November 2011 after spending 23 days in jail.

However, in March 2012, the High Court of Karnataka quashed the FIR registered against him regarding the Mining scam. A division bench of high court of Karnataka passed the order stating that "Suspicion cannot be a ground to tarnish the image and reputation of a person who is holding a Constitutional post. Even during the course of argument, a specific question was put to Lokayukta counsel to produce any material to connect the petitioner for alleged offences, but he was mum and did not indicate any favours shown by Yeddyurappa as the chief minister to any mining company". In May 2012, the Supreme Court, temporarily stayed the case on this matter and ordered an official CBI enquiry, to be completed within three months. On 25 July 2012, Karnataka High Court granted anticipatory bail to Yeddyurappa in a case relating to alleged irregularities in denotification of government land in 2009.

Other cases were: Justice K N Keshavanarayana of High Court quashed the complaint alleging encroachment of land in Bhadra Reserve Forest by Yeddyurappa and others on 5th Feb 2013 Karnataka High Court quashed a case registered against him for irregularities in the Upper Bhadra irrigation project on 10th Oct 2013