Bengaluru: B.S. Yeddyurappa, who resigned as Karnataka Chief Minister after failing to muster numbers to continue in government, had faced four floor tests earlier.
He faced the first floor test on November 19, 2007 where BJP's ally, Janata Dal (Secular) withdrew its support to the party, barely eight days after he took over.
President's rule was imposed in the state for six months and when the election took place, BJP once again emerged as the single largest party,but fell three short of a majority. That ensued the "Operation Lotus" in Karnataka. It involved making the opposition MLAs resign and contest again on a BJP ticket to shore up the numbers. Mr Yeddyuruppa won the floor test in June 2008.
Two years after the second floor test, he faced another challenge to his government when 18 MLAs withdrew support with the then governor Hansraj Bhardwaj asking Yeddyurappa to seek the vote of confidence. However, the then Speaker K G Bopaiah disqualified 16 MLAs, which comprised 11 BJP MLAs and five independents, thus bailing out the Yeddyurappa government.
The move helped Yeddyurappa win the trust vote on October 11, 2010, but it drew the ire of Bhardwaj, who rejected the floor test as a "farce" and recommended President's rule in the state.
At the same time, he gave another chance to Yeddyurappa to prove his majority in the house. The fourth trust vote was conducted three days later, on October 14, 2010, which he won.
Yeddyurappa fails to anchor BJP’s boat once again
Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa’s long ride to fame as the saffron brigade’s poster boy, south of the Vindhyas and three-time Chief Minister began with 10-km bicycle rides, but he broke his own record of the most short-lived head of government in Karnataka on Saturday.
The 75-year-old Mr Yeddyurappa navigated the choppy waters of politics with the consummate ease of a seasoned oarsman, often against the tidal waves of adversity, but failed to anchor the BJP’s boat safely in the shifting sands of Karnataka politics.
He was chief minister for barely seven days from November 12 to 19 in 2007, before the JD(S) pulled out of the coalition government, reneging on a power sharing arrangement.
A hardboiled RSS Swayamsevak, Yeddyurappa, joined the Hindu right organisation when he was barely 15, and cut his political teeth in the Jana Sangh, the BJP’s forerunner, in his hometown Shikaripura in Shivamogga district.
Currently a Lok Sabha member from Shivamogga, he was first elected to the Legislative Assembly from Shikaripura in 1983. The Lingayat strongman is known to have espoused the cause of farmers, something which was repeately referred to by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election speeches.
A Bachelor of Arts, Yeddurappa, who was jailed during Emergency, worked as a clerk in the social welfare department before taking up a similar job at a rice mill in his native Shikaripura. Later, he set up his own hardware shop in Shivamogga.
The Lingayat leader, however, continued to be dogged by controversies, with the anti-corruption bureau launching proceedings against him in an alleged illegal land denotification case. He petitioned the high court, which stayed the ACB proceedings against him.
The taint of alleged corruption notwithstanding, the BJP declared him its chief ministerial candidate, ignoring the taunts by the Congress.
