BENGALURU:

chief minister

, on cue from the party’s leadership, is likely to appoint two more deputy chief ministers in addition to the three who have already taken charge. The new

are likely to be from two major communities, making it a total of five from the five major communities in the state.

Of the new deputy CMs, one is set to be from Scheduled Tribe and the other from the Kuruba community. The three current deputy CMs in Yediyurappa’s cabinet are from Scheduled Caste (Govind Karjol), Lingayat (Laxman Savadi) and Vokkaliga (CN Ashwath Narayan) communities.

Sources said that the move has twin purposes. One, to keep Yediyurappa in check and to develop a pan-Karnataka vote bank for the party by keeping all major communities happy. The five communities roughly form around 70% of the population. Two, the

high command wants to ensure a competition among the five, one of whom will eventually succeed Yediyurappa at the helm.

The BJP in Karnataka is seen as a party of Lingayats and Yediyurappa has been at the helm for over three decades.

5 DyCMs is BJP’s plan to build a pan-state image

With a majority of Vokkaligas owing allegiance to JD(S) and Ahinda (acronym for minorities, backwards and Dalits) predominantly considered the vote bank of the Congress, the BJP leadership has realised that it needs to shed its tag of being a Lingayat party. So it’s reaching out to other communities to ensure it stays in power.

“The BJP high command is confident of reaping a rich political dividend with this new experiment,” said a senior BJP functionary.

Though the party has formed government in the state twice, it has fallen short of a simple majority. In 2008, it won 108 seats, four short of a simple majority. In 2018, it won 104 seats despite being the favourite of a majority of voters.

The appointment of the new deputy CMs is unlikely to happen before the Supreme Court pronounces a verdict on plea of the 17 disqualified MLAs.

If the disqualification is quashed, then the party could reward Ramesh Jarkiholi (ST) with a deputy CM’s post for his efforts to oust the Congress-JD(S) coalition government.

In the event of the Supreme Court upholding the disqualification, health minister B Sriramulu could be elevated to the post.

As far as accommodating the Kuruba community is concerned, the party is yet to finalise names, sources said. With no formidable names from the community among the disqualified MLAs, the party might promote RDPR minister KS Eshwarappa as deputy CM. Eshwarappa was a deputy CM in the Jagadish Shettar cabinet in 2012. Disqualified MLA AH Vishwanath and Byrathi Basavaraj are also from the community.