Bengaluru: The Karnataka BJP legislature party on Tuesday elected Basavaraj Bommai as its new leader and he will succeed outgoing Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa.
According to party sources, Bommai, a Lingayat leader from North Karnataka, had the backing of the outgoing chief minister Yediyurappa to succeed him. He is considered among the close confidants of Yediyurappa.
Basavaraj Bommai is the son of former chief minister, the late S.R. Bommai.
The 61-year-old leader was Minister for Home Affairs, Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislature in Yediyurappa’s council of ministers which was dissolved on Monday.
“The new leader proposal was made by senior leader B.S. Yediyurappa and was supported by Govind Karjol, R. Ashok, K.S. Eshwarappa, B. Sriramulu, S.T. Somashekar, Poornima Srinivas, and the newly elected legislature party leader and new Chief Minister will be Basavaraj Bommai,” BJP’s central observer and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said after the meeting.
Indian Express has reported that other contenders for the post were central leaders B.L. Santosh and Prahlad Joshi, and MLA Arvind Bellad who belonged to the significant Panchamshali Lingayat group.
Soon after the announcement, Bommai sought the blessings of Yediyurappa.
The legislature party meeting to elect the new leader took place at a city hotel in the presence of Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and G. Kishan Reddy who were appointed as central observers by BJP’s parliamentary board.
It was attended by BJP national general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Arun Singh, state president Nalin Kumar Kateel, national general secretary C.T. Ravi, among others.
Ending months of speculation over his exit, Yediyurappa on Monday stepped down as the chief minister, coinciding with his government completing two years in office.
Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot accepted the 78-year-old BJP veteran’s resignation, and dissolved the Council of Ministers headed by him, with immediate effect.
The notification from the Raj Bhavan said Yediyurappa shall continue to function as Chief Minister till alternative arrangements are made.
The Wire had recently – as part of the Pegasus Project which is based on a leaked data of numbers listed by government clients the Israeli company NSO Group – reported on possible surveillance of top Congress and JD(U) leaders through the spyware Pegasus in the run-up to the dramatic fall of the Kumaraswamy government in 2019.
This had paved the way for Yediyurappa to assume office.
(With PTI inputs)