OBC boost to BJP: 3 top Idiga leader from Congress join saffron outfit

BENGALURU: In an effort to wean away OBC voters from the ruling Congress ahead of next year’s elections to the Assembly, the state unit of BJP inducted former minister Kumar Bangarappa, his uncle and former MLA, Dr G D Narayanappa, and J.D. Nayak, former MLA, all powerful leaders of Idiga community, here on Thursday.

They joined the party a day after former minister K Jayaprakash Hegde’s entry. Their presence would help the party consolidate its support base in coastal and Malnad districts, according to party sources. While Mr Hegde holds sway over voters belonging to Bunt community, the trio would help garner the votes of Idiga community.     

Sources said voters belonging to Idiga community in Shivamogga and Uttar Kannada districts had backed candidates of Congress and JD(S) in 2013 Assembly elections. When the late CM S. Bangarappa joined BJP in 2004, a large number of OBC leaders from Uttar Kannada, Udupi and Shivamogga districts had accompanied him. His elder son Kumar Bangarappa has followed suit after 13 years.

State BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa and MP Shobha Karandlaje ensured the presence of party leaders and ticket aspirants H. Halappa (Sorab),  Belur Gopalakrishna (Sagar), Araga Jnanendra (Thirthahalli), and former MLA of Bhatkal Shivananda Naik as part of a strategy to portray a picture of unity to party workers of Shivamogga and Uttar Kannada districts.

Madhu: What Idiga crossover?
Reacting sharply to his older brother, Kumar Bangarappa, joining the BJP,  JD(S) leader, Madhu Bangarappa on Thursday called him a politician without credibility and claimed he shared this quality with state BJP chief, B S Yeddyurappa.

''It is now being suggested that the entire Idiga community will rally behind the BJP. But you must remember that both Mr Bangarappa (his father) and Mr Kagodu Thimmappa did not limit themselves to the welfare of our community alone. Such talk by the BJP is only an attempt to divide people on caste lines,'' he charged, adding,'' I am pained to see where my father’s legacy is heading. Mr Kumar Bangarappa did not wish our father on his 74th birthday, but was at Mr Yeddyurappa's doorsteps to wish him on his 74th birthday.  Later Mr Kumar quit the BJP within a few days of joining the party with my father. But today he says  the BJP grew in strength after my father joined it.”

Claiming that he was not affected by his brother joining hands with Mr Yeddyurappa, he said, ''I have faced both during local body elections and now they may have come together, but I am standing on firm ground.''

Questioning  Mr Yeddyurappa’s credibility he recalled that when he formed the Karnataka Janata Party, he had sworn  never to return to the BJP, but now he was back in it “with a begging bowl.”  

As for his brother, he asked disparagingly, “ What is the credibility of Mr Kumar Bangarappa? A defeated candidate, whose performance was zero in the Zilla Panchayat election, and insignificant in the APMC.”