Cries of dynasty politics have started emerging from within the BJP following the appointment of Vijayendra Yediyurappa, son of Lingayat strongman B.S. Yediyurappa, as the Karnataka party president.

Party MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, who has been eyeing the posts of state president and the leader of the Opposition but was overlooked for both, has voiced his concerns that neither the cadres nor the Hindu supporters would back the party run by one
family.

Six months after losing the state polls in May, the BJP on Friday appointed former minister and influential Vokkaliga leader R. Ashoka as the leader of the Opposition, again leaving Yatnal in the lurch.

Party sources said Yatnal didn’t hide his displeasure at the choice of Vijayendra when central observers including finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Karnataka BJP general secretary (organisation) Rajesh GV called on him to pacify him before the meeting to elect the Opposition leader on Friday.

Yatnal stormed out of the meeting as soon as it became clear that Ashoka was the party’s choice, and not him. He was immediately joined by senior BJP leader and MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi. Two other MLAs, Shivaram Hebbar and S.T. Somashekar, boycotted the election over the appointment of Vijayendra.

“I have told the central observers that they shouldn’t allow the Karnataka BJP unit to become one family’s property. The BJP workers and the Hindu supporters won’t accept it,” he told reporters after walking out of Friday’s meeting.

He later took to X to declare he was a “warrior” whose life is an “endless challenge”.

“A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges,” he wrote.

Yatnal’s “one family” flak comes close on the heels of the Congress slamming the BJP, which had repeatedly launched verbal assaults on the “Nehru-Gandhi dynasty”, after Vijayendra’s elevation as president.

Besides Yatnal, C.T. Ravi, Jarkiholi and Arvind Bellad are also miffed at being overlooked for the party chief’s post.

Ravi, a hardliner, however, stopped short of commenting against dynastic politics. “There are chances of attaching the wrong motive if I say anything on this…(So) I don’t want to comment,” he had recently told reporters who specifically asked him if the BJP wasn’t following dynasty politics.

The BJP is eyeing to maintain at least 26 of the 28 seats it won in 2019.

With the Janata Dal Secular joining the NDA almost two months ago, the BJP is looking at capitalising on the Vokkaliga vote bank, which is the primary reason for appointing Ashoka as the floor leader in the Assembly.