The role of the BJP’s powerful organisational man, B.L. Santhosh, will come under the scanner when the party starts to analyse its drubbing in the Karnataka Assembly polls that saw its tally dip to less than half of the Congress, party insiders said.
Santhosh, who is the BJP’s national general secretary (organisation) and is seen as one of the most influential players at the top of the party pyramid, had played an “oversized” role in the Karnataka elections, party leaders said.
A representative of the BJP’s ideological parent RSS, Santhosh is known to be very close to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah.
Santhosh had been tweeting aggressively during the course of the elections, reflecting his political stakes in his home state, but fell silent after the results were declared on Saturday. Barring a retweet of Modi’s tweet congratulating the Congress over the Karnataka victory, there is nothing fresh on his timeline till Monday.
“Like Ramji’s Sena won the war in Lanka for Prabhu Sri Ram, the Sena of Booth Committee workers & Page Pramukhs are winning the battle for Modiji in every Booth,” Santhosh had tweeted on the day the votes were being cast.
“Santhoshji played a big role in Karnataka. From managing organisational affairs and devising strategies to influencing the selection of candidates, his footprint was everywhere,” a party leader said.
The leader said that the non-performance of the Basavaraj Bommai government and the factional war in the state BJP, seen as major reasons for the defeat, largely stemmed from the mishandling of organisational affairs.
The most worrying thing for the BJP is the division in the powerful Lingayat community votes that have been the party’s backbone for decades. As many as 34 Lingayats have won on Congress tickets this time, the highest since 1989.
While sections in the party suspect the “dubious role” played by former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa in the division of the Lingayat votes, many held Santhosh responsible.
Yediyurappa, a Lingayat stalwart who had built the party in the southern state, was forced to step down as the chief minister in 2021 by the BJP high command.
In the run-up to the polls, BJP MLA and national general secretary C.T. Ravi had publicly hit out at Yediyurappa after he announced the candidature of his son B.Y. Vijayendra from the Shikaripura constituency, which he had represented for many terms. Ravi, believed to be a nominee of Santhosh, had said that the “decision on candidates cannot be made in their (Yediyurappa family) kitchen or home”.
In party circles, this was viewed as Santhosh’s indirect attack on Yediyurappa that left the veteran feeling insulted, and this in turn angered the Lingayat community.
However, party insiders ruled out any action against Santhosh given his closeness to Modi and Shah and the wider feeling that he was only implementing the script given to him by the duo.
