CHURUMURI POLL: Who will be Karnataka CM?

The BJP central leadership’s stern instruction to B.S. Yediyurappa to resign immediately at least removes one possibility from the equation: that the party bosses might sit on the fence endlessly while a rebellion built up in the State leading to more embarrassment for the party ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament.

But it also opens up the other part of the equation: who after Yediyurappa?

Having dislodged a Lingayat chief minister, should the replacement be a Lingayat like a Jagadish Shettar, to assuage hurt feelings? Is it time for a Vokkaliga, like D.V. Sadananda Gowda or Shobha Karandlaje, to blunt the JDS edge? Or, since Brahmins were supposed to have backed the BJP in the elections, should the high command look at the likes of perennial frontrunner Ananth Kumar, or V.S. Acharya or even Suresh Kumar?

Who do you think stands the best chance of becoming the second BJP chief minister in the South?