The build-up on Hindutva issues like hijab, halal, ban on Muslim traders, began early last year, while the reservation policy was hurriedly changed and put out this year to appeal to Lingayats, Vokkaligas, and Dalits. Neither strategy managed to convince voters.
Barring the last leg of the campaign led by Prime Minister Modi, the Congress managed to set the agenda around local issues which BJP had to keep responding to.
Yediyurappa is a chief minister with nine lives
Sugata Srinivasaraju
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Despite being dogged by controversies, BS Yediyurappa has survived for so long because no other leader in the state, in recent times, has knit so many communities together to capture power.
In the past few months, there have been innumerable calls from professional colleagues and the politically curious, asking if Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa will be replaced. He is 77, so beyond the BJP’s 75-year cut-off mark; sails from one controversy to another; and has an endless flow of corruption charges against his government and family. Yet nobody really has an answer to the question of whether he will go - presumably not even the BJP’s top leadership. The rumours of his exit are usually said to originate from people around the BJP’s ambitious Organising Secretary in Delhi, BL Santosh. In Yediyurappa’s mind, Santosh is the new noire and nightmare. He plays the mischievous role that HN Ana