CELEBRATION TIME: Bharatiya Janata Party MP H.N. Ananth Kumar offering a sweet to party colleague B.S. Yediyurappa in the presence of State BJP President Jagadish Shettar. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: The Bharatiya Janata Party is coming to power or sharing power in Karnataka after many years of struggle, agitations and frustrating electoral reverses. It is also the first time the party is coming to power in South India.

The Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the earlier edition of the BJP, made its electoral debut in the erstwhile State of Mysore in the 1952 general elections. It had then adopted the plank of the Hindu Mahasabha, which had a small base in princely Mysore. The Congress and the Socialist Party had, in those days, dubbed the Jan Sangh as a pro-rich party of landlords.

The Jan Sangh had to fight four general elections before it could enter the Legislative Assembly in 1967. Four of its members were elected to the House, which had a good presence of members belonging to the now defunct Swatantra Party and the Praja Socialist Party, which merged with the Congress. The Jan Sangh also did reasonably well in the 1967 Lok Sabha election from Bangalore South, where the Kannada literary giant Gopalakrishna Adiga gave a fight to the Congress stalwart Kengal Hanumanthaiya.

Flash in the pan

But the 1967 entry into the Assembly proved to be a flash in the pan. However, in the 1978 Assembly elections, by when the Jan Sangh had merged with the Janata Party, a good number of Sanghites, including Bhaurao Deshpande and H. Gangadharan, entered the Assembly. H.D. Deve Gowda led the Janata Party in that election which was a disappointment for the organisation. Earlier, during the days of the Emergency, a large number of Jan Sanghites and Rasthriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders and workers were imprisoned.

However, the Jan Sangh had a presence in the Legislative Council from the mid-1960s, winning seats reserved for graduates and teachers.

A.K. Subbaiah, G.S. Ullal, Mallur Ananda Rao, Y.S. Patil, A. Gundaiah Setty and Padmavathi Vittal Rao were among them. Mr. Subbaiah, who is now in the All-India Progressive Janata Dal, proved himself to a stormy petrel of the Legislative Council and was unsparing in his attacks on the Congress.

S.B. Swethadri, Gundiah Setty and former Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha S. Mallikarjunaiah, MP, were among the presidents of the Jan Sangh in the State.

Even after the Bharatiya Janata Party was founded in 1980, it had to wait till 1983 to enter the Assembly under its symbol. Eighteen BJP candidates were elected to the House and they helped the Janata Party led by Ramakrishna Hegde, S.R. Bommai and Mr. Deve Gowda to come to power. The support to the Janata Government announced by the Central leadership eventually led to the expulsion from the party of the then State President A.K. Subbaiah. However, the party suffered serious reverses in the 1985 elections when it won only two seats. B.S. Yediyurappa, who is going to become Deputy Chief Minister, was one of the winners. The 1989 Assembly saw the BJP strength rise to four, and Mr. Yediyurappa was among the MLAs.

The BJP came of age in Karnataka only in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections when four of its candidates were elected. There has been no looking back since then, and in the 1994 elections, the party emerged the principal Opposition in the Assembly with 40 members. The Janata Dal came to power. The party failed to capitalise on the fact that the BJP had come to power at the Centre and could secure only 44 seats in the Assembly in the 1999 elections. The April 2004 general elections saw the BJP emerging as the single largest party in the Assembly with 79 seats and make a record haul of 18 seats from the State in the Lok Sabha. However, two of those seats have been lost in subsequent byelections.

It is of interest that the Union Government has seen BJP Ministers from the State nearly eight years before they occupy the Vidhana Soudha in company with the Janata Dal (S). Dhananjaya Kumar, H.N. Ananth Kumar and Basavaraj Patil Yatnal have been Ministers at the Centre. While Mr. Ananth Kumar served in the Cabinet, Mr. Dhananjaya Kumar, who was a cabinet Minister in the first Vajpayee Ministry, which lasted only 13 days, later settled for the position of Minister of State. Mr. Yatnal was Minister of State for Railways.

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