Bengaluru: It's a poorer Yeddyurappa who will face the 2018 Assembly elections, that is, if you go by the affidavit he filed with the Election Commission on Thursday.
BJP MP from Shimoga, BS Yeddyurappa, also the party’s state unit president, filed his nomination papers from his old Assembly constituency of Shikaripura in his third bid for chief ministership of Karnataka. His affidavit — since the party declared him its CM face for the Karnataka elections — is full of surprises.
Yeddyurappa had earlier contested from the Shikaripura seat after floating his own political outfit — the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) — when he was shown the door by the BJP in 2013. This was after his name surfaced in the illegal mining scam.
In 2014, after his return to the BJP, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Shimoga, leaving the Shikaripura seat for his son, BY Raghavendra.
Looking at the affidavits that BSY filed for the 2013, 2014 and 2018 elections, one would realize that not only has he declared far lesser assets this time, he also seems to have rid himself of the several criminal cases he had in his name.
Yeddyurappa had 34 cases at a time while most of them were related to the Prevention of Corruption Act. This came down to just 16 cases in 2014 and by 2018, BSY is just left with three cases — one related to corruption (criminal misconduct, breach of trust, forgery and cheating), two others relating to election violations during a by-poll last year.
However, it is his riches that is a greater cause of curiosity.
On Thursday, he declared cumulative assets of Rs 4.09 crore while BS Yeddyurappa was worth Rs 5.8 crore in 2013 and Rs 6.9 crore in 2014.
Both his movable and immovable assets have gone down over the past four years while his liabilities have also decreased considerably.
Not just his assets, his educational qualifications as mentioned in the affidavit, are also bound to ruffle some feathers.
In 2013, the BJP leader had claimed that his highest educational qualification was a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from Bangalore University.
In 2014, he claimed that his highest education qualification was Pre-University College (PUC) — a Class 12 equivalent — from Government College, Mandya.
In 2018, he sticks to this declaration of a PUC degree, adding for good measure that the concerned college was affiliated to the Mysore University and he completed the course in 1960-61.
On Thursday, Yeddyurappa was accompanied by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, Union Minister Ananth Kumar and BJP MP B Sreeramulu when he filed his nomination papers for the upcoming Assembly elections, making this his ninth bid for the Shikaripura Assembly seat. Between 1983 and 2013, Yeddyurappa contested eight times and lost just once from this constituency in 1999.
On Friday, the other two chief ministerial candidates, Congress' Siddaramaiah and JDS' HD Kumaraswamy, are set to file their nomination papers from Chamundeshwari and Ramanagara constituencies, respectively.
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