Who Is B.L. Santosh and Why Is He Facing Ex-BJP CM Jagadish Shettar's Ire?

Bengaluru: One person who is not in the electoral fray in Karnataka but whose name has generated a lot of discussion is Bommarabettu Laxmijanardhana Santhosh or B.L. Santosh, the BJP’s national general secretary.

This was more so since former BJP chief minister Jagadish Shettar addressed a press meeting on Tuesday, April 18. Shettar, who quit the BJP in a huff and joined the rival Congress, lashed out at the 56-year-old Santosh for being “directly responsible” for his denial of a ticket for the May 10 Karnataka elections from the BJP, a party he served for over three decades. Unlike his usual soft-spoken, affable persona, Shettar was combative and aggressive on Tuesday and launched a no-holds-barred attack on Santosh. Shettar accused Santosh of “destroying the organisation built by the sweat of lakhs of karyakartas” to fulfil his personal ambitions.

“Who is Santosh?” This was a question many are asking, since he is not known much outside the RSS-BJP circles. Santosh is an RSS pracharak-turned-BJP key figure. Hailing from Hiriyadka town in Karnataka’s coastal Udupi district, Santosh – a Shivalli Brahmin – was born to lower-middle-class parents who didn’t own a house and lived in a temple.

Santosh joined the RSS at a young age and did his engineering in instrumentation technology from BDT College of Engineering in Davanagere, Karnataka. He later became involved full-time in the RSS and worked as a pracharak from 1993 in several districts like Udupi, Shivamogga, Mysuru and Bengaluru.

Santosh, always clad in a dhoti and white shirt, maintains a safe distance from the media. He was brought in as Karnataka BJP general secretary (organisation) in 2006 (succeeding Vaman Acharya) and remained in the post till 2014. This was a post that was created, both at the state and central level, for better coordination between the BJP and its ideological parent, RSS. This stint enabled Santosh to closely observe the BJP as a party organisation and as a ruling outfit.

His appointment coincided with a tumultuous period for the party. Though it assumed power in Karnataka in November 2007, the BJP landed in various problems – most significantly the corruption charges that saw its Lingayat strongman and chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa (BSY) being sent to jail. The party had to appoint three CMs in as many years – D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Shettar being the other two, who had stints less than a year.

Strained relationship with Yediyurappa

All along, there was no love lost between him and BSY. Santosh was said to have strongly opposed BSY because of the corruption charges levelled against him, for nepotism and his closeness with the Bellary mining barons and their role in the government and the party. Santosh was also opposed to the late Anant Kumar, a fellow Brahmin and Union minister. Santosh was accused of encouraging those opposed to BSY within the party and not allowing his own detractors to enter the party office.

Come 2014, Narendra Modi became the prime minister. Santosh was appointed national joint general secretary in charge of the southern states that very year. He was elevated to the post of general secretary (organisation) of the BJP in 2019. From 2019 onwards, he has carried out crucial tasks like changing chief ministers in many states such as Gujarat, Tripura and Uttarakhand without a hitch. Incidentally, in all these states, the BJP returned to power despite the change in CMs.

With regard to Karnataka, Santosh was always said to be keen on creating new leadership and spotting new, young faces committed to the Sangh and the BJP. The experiment in 2019 of having three deputy CMs – Laxman Savadi (Lingayat, defeated as MLA), Ashwath Narayan (Vokkaliga) and Govind Karjol (Dalit) – was said to have been planned by Santosh to clip BSY’s wings and at the same time, to try and evolve a set of new leadership. It, of course, did not work.

He was also said to have spotted Tejasvi Surya, the Bengaluru South MP; brought in C.T. Ravi as national general secretary in charge of a few states; and appointed Karnataka-cadre IPS officer Annamalai as Tamil Nadu BJP chief. He also played a key role in choosing several new faces who were not known even within the BJP as Rajya Sabha members, and found many unheralded achievers to receive Padma awards.

Unlike Yediyurappa, Santosh is known as a Hindutva hardliner and is credited with empowering leaders like Ravi, Nalin Kumar Kateel and Tejasvi Surya, who share similar views.

What do insiders say?

Santosh is said to be strongly against individuals growing in stature such that dealing with them comes at the cost of party ideology and is in favour of the emergence of new leadership at state and district levels. He is against dynasty (family) politics but believes that it can’t be stopped instantly. In Karnataka, he wanted to break the nexus between the politicians and mutts – he once remarked that some mutts take money from politicians to hold festivals as per the convenience of those politicians.

Santosh’s name got entangled in the alleged poaching of Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs in Telangana and luring them to BJP. Santhosh and three others were named as accused by the Special Investigation Team in the case.

The general secretary is said to have been given the task of cleaning up and reclaiming the party organisation in different states including Karnataka, “even if this means taking some years and the party getting defeated in some states”. Many see his hand in the selection of party candidates for the Karnataka assembly. It is apparently his idea to make two senior leaders contest from two seats. R. Ashoka will contest from Padmanabhanagar, and Kanakapura where he will face KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar, while V. Somanna will contest from Chamarrajanagar and Vaaruna, where he will oppose Congress leader and former CM Siddaramaiah.

Shettar has alleged that Santosh has taken full control of the Karnataka BJP unit and was taking all decisions to the detriment of the party. The former CM accused Santosh of appointing his own people to strategic posts both in the state and at the centre, and is driving people like him, who have worked for decades for the party, out of the organisation. He also said Santosh was instrumental in denying tickets not only to him but to many others – only because he wanted to choose his own people as candidates.

A section of partymen accuse Santosh of having chief ministerial ambitions and for this reason, ensuring that Shettar and K.S. Eshwarappa exit the party and electoral scene respectively. While some people accuse Santosh of preferring Brahmin candidates, his supporters say if that was the case, “would he have been instrumental in bringing in three deputy CMs of different castes?”

B.S. Arun is a senior journalist based in Bengaluru.