Listening to BS Yeddyurappa, it seemed as if the Bharatiya Janata Party's election campaign for 2019 has begun – from inside Karnataka's Vidhana Soudha. Yeddyurappa's teary farewell speech as chief minister was intended to do an Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to reap electoral dividends a year later.
Except that it is anyone's guess how long the 75-year-old Yeddyurappa, who was given grace time beyond the unofficial retirement age in the BJP, will be allowed to stay on as Karnataka BJP chief, before being nudged into the Margdarshak mandal.
Sitting a few steps away, on the Opposition benches, Siddaramaiah smirked, even as BSY tore into what he called was an “opportunistic alliance” struck between the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular).
That is possibly because the two parties that have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat see in the half-a-dozen audio conversations between senior BJP leaders and Congress MLAs, the gunpowder to fire at the “na khaoonga, na khaane doonga'' slogan of Narendra Modi.