K S Eshwarappa's days of yore

Last July, senior BJP leader KS Eshwarappa said he cared two hoots if he was removed from the Cabinet.

But, while announcing his resignation Thursday, Eshwarappa lacked that sense of indifference, choosing instead to profusely thank people and his party.

His tenure as rural development & panchayat raj (RDPR) minister since 2019 could well be his last ministerial innings in a colourful career of over three decades that even saw him become Karnataka's deputy chief minister.

Controversies, even corruption allegations, are not new for the 73-year-old leader, a rabble-rouser who has landed his party in a soup several times in the past.

In December 2012, Lokayukta sleuths found a currency-counting machine in the Bengaluru house of Eshwarappa, who was then the deputy CM. Now, the 5-time MLA has been accused of demanding a 40% cut in work bill payments, which allegedly drove contractor Santosh Patil towards suicide.

Also read: Eshwarappa resigned voluntarily; no pressure from high command, says CM

Grapevine was that Eshwarappa would be dropped anyway during the next Cabinet rejig.

But, there is no denying the importance of being Eshwarappa: he served as a minister every time the BJP was in power - during the coalition with JD(S) in 2006 and between 2008 and 2013.

The BJP’s growth story in Karnataka which starts from Shivamogga is incomplete without Eshwarappa. A B.Com graduate from Acharya Tulsi National College of Commerce, Eshwarappa teamed up with BS Yediyurappa and DH Shankaramurthy - the triumvirate of Shivamogga politics - to start a Torino factory back in the 1980s while as they laid bricks and mortar to build the BJP.

His first electoral win came in 1989 from Shivamogga when he defeated the then health minister KH Srinivas. In the next 1994 election, the BJP increased its tally from four seats to 40. Eshwarappa, then the state BJP president, was instrumental in the saffron surge.

Over the years, though, Eshwarappa’s friendship with Yediyurappa - they even rode a moped together back in the day - soured. Last year, Eshwarappa knocked on the doors of Raj Bhavan with a formal complaint against Yediyurappa, the then chief minister.

Also read: Eshwarappa resigns as minister after furore over contractor's death

Eshwarappa has been the BJP’s Kuruba face, representing a prominent backward community that Congress’ Siddaramaiah also belongs to. In December 2016, Eshwarappa launched Rayanna Brigade, an outfit to mobilise the Ahinda (minorities, backward classes and Dalits) to counter Siddaramaiah. He was later forced to drop the project.

As a native BJP leader with roots in the RSS, Eshwarappa is a vociferous Hindutva campaigner. Once, he publicly justified why Muslims cannot be given BJP tickets. Following the recent murder of Harsha in Shivamogga, Eshwarappa led a procession and blamed 'Muslim goondas' for the crime.

His loyalists vouch that he's a simple man who doesn't mince words, a virtue that has troubled the BJP. In 2015, he asked a woman journalist, “If you are raped, what can we or anybody do?”

Despite being the unapologetic hardliner, people in officialdom say Eshwarappa isn’t communal when it comes to administration. “He’s extremely professional,” one bureaucrat says.

The resignation need not be a sunset, because a 'son rise' is in store. Just as Yediyurappa wants to hand over the reins to his children, Eshwarappa has been grooming his son KE Kantesh to take the baton.

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