Four former CMs to felicitate the Chief Minister

Bengaluru: B.S. Yediyurappa, the only Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Minister the party has chosen for public office beyond the 75-year age limit, is all set to celebrate his 77th birthday on Feb. 27 as a grand public event. A felicitation volume is being planned to be released on that day.

Though many senior leaders of the BJP, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, will take part, it is planned as a “non-partisan” event, said sources. Opposition leaders and former CMs Siddharamaiah from the Congress and H.D. Kumaraswamy from the Janata Dal (Secular) are expected to participate.

“Four former Chief Ministers of the State — S.M. Krishna,  Siddharamaiah, D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Kumaraswamy — will felicitate the Chief Minister. It is a rare non-partisan occasion to appreciate the long public life of Yediyurappa, also reflecting the democratic traditions of the State,” said Mahadeva Prakash, Media Adviser to the CM.

The felicitation volume includes 78 articles about Yediyurappa from all walks of life — politicians cutting across party lines, bureaucrats, writers, spiritual leaders and even scientists — he added. 

In a faction-ridden party and amid persistent rumours that refuse to die that central leadership is looking beyond Yediyurappa to take the lead in the State, the event seeks to reassert the CM’s position as the only leader of high stature within the party, sources close to Yediyurappa said.

“The high command has also often not dealt with him with the respect he deserves, being the senior-most Chief Minister and a mass leader of the party in the country today. The delay in flood relief and Cabinet expansion, and forcing on him three deputies, have created bad optics. He now seeks to remould himself in the role of a senior Statesman, whom even the high command cannot ignore,” a strategist close to the Chief Minister said.