BANGALORE: Former chief ministers B S Yeddyurappa and H D Kumaraswamy have a lot in common. Just four years ago, both of them were friends. They came together and separated for the sake of power. Then they turned foes, entered into a bitter battle of words. Both exposed each other’s misdeeds as if there was no tomorrow. As if by a quirk of fate, both are now facing the threat of being jailed together. Going by the present mood in the country against corruption, the jail term for both appears to be imminent as often said by Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah.The similarity between the two continues even in the cases they are facing and in the involvement of their family members. Both are accused of illegally denotifying lands for pecuniary gains besides eating into the illegal mining pie. Interestingly, both are indicted by the Lokayukta in its final report on illegal mining.Not only did they entangle themselves in a legal battle, but drag their family members into it as well. While Yeddyurappa has his two sons - B S Raghavendra and B Y Vijayendra and son-in-law R N Sohankumar for company in his legal fight, Kumaraswamy has his wife Anita Kumaraswamy - the JD(S) MLA from Madhugiri constituency.It all started in 2006 when the two secretly engineered a coup to dislodge the Dharam Singh led JD(S)-Congress coalition government. Though both belonged to ideologically different parties, power united them. On an agreement of sharing power for 20 months each, both formed the government with Kumaraswamy as the CM and Yeddyurappa as his deputy. Interestingly, both tasted the power in the state for the first time. The trouble between the two, however, started brewing when Kumaraswamy refused to hand over power to Yeddyurappa. Kumaraswamy went by his father H D Deve Gowda’s word when it came to transfer of power, which ended in snap polls. Riding high on the sympathy wave, Yeddyurappa managed to get his party to power and become the CM. Soon after, he started polarising Lingayats against Vokkaligas to keep his political interests afloat and also to teach Kumaraswamy’s family - which enjoys clout among Vokkaligas - a lesson. In this process, he committed several illegal deeds which now haunt him.Kumaraswamy has been accused of getting `150 crore as kickbacks from the mining lobby. Yeddyurappa faces charges of nepotism to denotification of land for illegal mining.That they have a common tormentor — former Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde only adds to the irony of the tale of the two beleagured chief ministers.
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