New Delhi: This July 28, Karnataka got a new BJP chief minister in Basavaraj Bommai. The change of chief minister in the southern state comes after a protracted demand from within the state party for a leadership change. While both former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa and the national leadership of the party had ignored this demand that came from within the state unit for a considerable time, they finally bowed down to it – perhaps keeping the next assembly elections in mind. The state is set to go to polls in 2023. Under Yediyurappa’s leadership, the party had struggled to win sufficient seats in the 2018 assembly elections to claim a simple majority in the 224-member house.Under the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, an approach to secure poll victories at any cost has led BJP to not only bring to its fold ‘winnable’ candidates from other parties, particularly Congress, but to also pick ministers from such a lot. Also read: For the BJP’s Failed Chanakyas, the Allure of Pegasus Was IrresistibleBommai is one such example. And he is not alone in the list of current BJP chief ministers picked by the Modi-Shah duo. As of July 28, 2021, out of 12 serving BJP chief ministers, four of them did not start their political careers with the party. Basavaraj BommaiWhile news about Bommai’s selection to the top post has mostly centred around the fact that a party like BJP which rejects the ‘dynastic’ politics of its prime opponent Congress, has ended up picking a chief minister whose father too was a chief minister, it is also to be noted that with Bommai’s elevation to the top post, BJP has extended its list of chief ministers who came to the party from another political entity. Bommai’s father – S. R. Bommai – was a top Janata Party leader from Karnataka and took up the chair of the state chief minister for less than a year in 1988 from the Janata Party.Outgoing Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa greets newly elected Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai as Karnataka Governor Thawarchand Gehlot looks on during the oath taking ceremony at Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru, Wednesday, July 28, 2021. Photo: PTILike his father, Basavaraj too began with Janata Party and later moved to Janata Dal (United). He moved to BJP in 2008, weeks before the state assembly polls were held that year and successfully won the polls. Said to be close to Yediyurappa, he got a number of prime portfolios since, including irrigation, his area of expertise. Till July 26, 2021, he also served as the fourth Yediyurappa cabinet’s home minister. Pema KhanduMuch before BJP picked the son of a former chief minister in Karnataka to be its chief minister, it had made Pema Khandu the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh. Khandu’s father, Dorjee Khandu, was a two-time Congress chief minister before he passed away in a helicopter crash in his state in 2011.Pema soon won from his father’s constituency Mukto as a Congress candidate. Following months of political turmoil in Arunachal, widely believed to have been engineered by the BJP, in 2016, at the Supreme Court’s intervention, the Nabam Tuki led Congress government was reinstated. However, the MLAs picked Pema as their chief minister, leading him to become a Congress chief minister in July 2016. Barely two months later, he, along with 43 MLAs, defected to People’s Party of Arunachal, an ally of the BJP, and upon proving his majority at the floor of the house, defected to the BJP to become the party’s chief minister in that border state. Pema Khandu after joining the BJP on December 31. Credit: Twitter/ @CMPemaKhanduThe first BJP chief minister of Arunachal, Gegong Apang, too had started his political career with Congress. Apang would perhaps be the only Congress chief minister in the country who had served a full term to also become the BJP chief minister.He quit the BJP in 2019 to join the Janata Dal (United). Himanta Biswa SarmaYet another BJP chief minister who was a former Congress leader is Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. In 2014, when BJP had declared Modi its prime ministerial face, Sarma had campaigned against him and his party in Assam and had famously stated in an election rally that in Gujarat, where Modi was the then chief minister, the blood of Muslims flowed in its pipes instead of water, referring to the 2002 riots. Also read: Assam Has a New CM – Himanta Biswa Sarma. What Does It Spell For the Future of Assam Politics?He joined BJP in August 2015, months before the 2016 assembly polls that brought BJP to power in the state for the first time. Sarma is widely believed to have left Congress because the party did not make him the state chief minister. In the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress governments across three terms, Sarma had held powerful ministerial portfolios.Assam’s first BJP chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, too had begun his political career with another party – Asom Gana Parishad.N. Biren SinghYet another BJP chief minister to have come from Congress is N. Biren Singh of Manipur. Like Sarma, Singh too fell out with then Congress chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh and moved to the BJP, which was then putting all its efforts into making use of the strong anti-incumbency against the Congress government to grab power. After the 2017 assembly polls, though Congress emerged as the single largest party, the governor invited the BJP to form the government with help from its allies, the Naga People’s Front and the National People’s Party. Biren took oath as the first BJP chief minister of Manipur in March 2017.
