BANGALORE: BJP national general secretary Ananth Kumar’s carefully crafted strategy to get himself imposed by the party high command as the leader of the BJP Legislature Party - in order to become the chief minister - was the only reason behind outgoing Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa’s turning wild and refusing to step down.It is no secret that Ananth Kumar has long been nursing his ambition to become CM. But he has been sulking, despite being an MP and one who had been part of the Union Cabinet for six years.In the aftermath of the submission of the final report of the Lokayukta on illegal mining scam which held Yeddyurappa and four of his ministerial colleagues guilty, Ananth wanted to repeat the 28-year-old feat of late Ramakrishna Hegde, who was a Rajya Sabha MP, and suddenly became the first chief minister of the Janata government in January 1983.Hegde realised that there was power struggle among Vokkaliga strongman H D Deve Gowda, Lingayat leader S R Bommai and BC leader S Bangarappa for the post of chief minister. He arrived from Delhi to bring about a truce among them, but managed to outsmart everybody and became the CM of the first non-Congress government in the state.With his good equations with top BJP leaders A B Vajpayee and L K Advani, Hegde managed to get the unconditional support of the 18-member BJP group to form the government.With Yeddyurappa, a Lingayat, and state BJP president K S Eshwarappa, a BC leader, locking horns on the issue of finding a successor to the hot seat, Ananth, apparently with the blessings of his god father L K Advani, is said to be lobbying for chief ministership. But the MP has not come out in the open and expressed his ambition.Yeddyurappa, who got scent of Ananth’s machination, became wild and threatened to split the party, if his political bete noire was chosen as his successor.Ananth has clarified that he is not lobbying for any post. But Yeddyurappa, however, thinks that it was his old ploy — to lull his opponents into complacency and achieve his aim.
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