Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yediyurappa (born 27 February 1943), often referred to by his initials BSY, is an Indian politician. He is currently serving as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Parliamentary board committee since 17 August 2022, termed as the highest office of authority in the party. He served as the 13th Chief Minister of Karnataka, and he was former Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly between 1983 - 2022 in different timelines. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is also the only politician so far in Karnataka to have served four times as the Chief Minister and three times as the Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. He is the longest serving BJP Chief Minister of Karnataka. He is former MLA from Shikaripura constituency in Shimoga district, from where he has been elected eight times.
In 2008, Yediyurappa became the chief minister after leading the BJP to victory in the Karnataka Assembly elections, a first for the BJP in a South Indian state. In 2011, he resigned after being indicted over a corruption case; he was acquitted in 2016. Owing to alleged ill-treatment meted out to Yediyurappa by the BJP High Command, he left the BJP and formed his own party, the Karnataka Janata Paksha. In 2014 he merged his party with the BJP and was subsequently elected to the 16th Lok Sabha from the Shivamogga constituency, which he quit after being elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in the May 2018 state elections. On 17 May 2018, he was sworn in as the Chief Minister for the third time. However, he was unable to get majority support in the Assembly and resigned just two days after taking office, after which H. D. Kumaraswamy took oath as the Chief Minister. After the government of Kumaraswamy lost its majority in July 2019 with the resignation of 17 MLAs, Yediyurappa took oath as the Chief Minister and proved his majority. In the December by-elections, BJP won 12 seats out of 15 and gained a majority of 117 seats under his leadership, cementing his win.
After days of speculation, Yediyurappa resigned as Chief Minister on 26 July 2021, the second anniversary of his fourth term. He was succeeded by his protégé, Basavaraj Bommai, on 28 July 2021.
Personal life
Yediyurappa was born on 27 February 1943 in a village called Bookanakere in Krishnarajpet taluk of Mandya district. His parents were Siddalingappa and Puttathayamma. He was named after the presiding deity of a Shaivite temple built by the great saint Siddalingeshwara at Yediyur in Tumkuru district. His mother died when he was four. He completed his Pre-University College education from Government college, Mandya (Mysore University) 1960–61. He belongs to Banajiga sub-sect of veerashaiva Lingayat community.
In 1965, he was appointed a first-division clerk in the social welfare department but he quit the job and moved on to Shikaripura where he joined as a clerk at Veerabhadra Shastri's Shankara rice mill. In 1967, Yediyurappa married Mythradevi, daughter of a rice mill owner. He later set up a hardware shop in Shimoga. Yediyurappa has two sons, Raghavendra, B. Y. Vijayendra and three daughters, Arunadevi, Padmavati and Umadevi. In 2004, his wife died after falling into a sump while drawing water. There was further tragedy when his granddaughter Soundarya, daughter of Padmavathi, died in January 2022 by hanging herself in Bangalore at the age of 30.
In 2007, he changed the spelling of his name to Yeddyurappa from the earlier Yediyurappa following the advice of his astrologers, to change back again to Yediyurappa before oath taking ceremony on 26 July 2019. He is a follower of Basavanna. In 2020 he was infected by the COVID-19 virus but recovered soon afterwards. On 16 April 2021, he again tested positive for COVID-19 amidst India's second wave of infections.