The name of B.L. Santosh, the BJP’s national general secretary, has generated a lot of discussion in the run-up to the May 10 Karnataka elections, despite not being a candidate. Former BJP chief minister Jagadish Shettar, who quit the party and joined rival Congress, attacked Santosh for being “directly responsible” for his being denied a ticket when he had worked for the BJP for more than 30 years. Santosh is a 56-year-old RSS pracharak-turned-BJP key figure. He was accused of “destroying the organisation built by the sweat of lakhs of karyakartas” to fulfil his personal ambitions by Shettar. Santosh, from Hiriyadka in Karnataka’s coastal Udupi district, joined the RSS at a young age and did his engineering in instrumentation technology from BDT College of Engineering in Karnataka. He later became involved full-time in the RSS and worked as a pracharak from 1993 in districts like Udupi, Shivamogga, Mysuru, and Bengaluru.
Santosh was appointed Karnataka BJP general secretary (organisation) in 2006, a post that was created, both at the state and central level, for better coordination between the BJP and its ideological parent, RSS. During his tenure, the BJP landed in various problems, most significantly the corruption charges that saw its Lingayat strongman and chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa being sent to jail. He was said to have strongly opposed BSY because of the corruption charges levelled against him, for nepotism and his closeness with the Bellary mining barons and their role in the government and the party. Santosh was also opposed to the late Anant Kumar, a fellow Brahmin and Union minister. Santosh was accused of encouraging those opposed to BSY within the party and not allowing his own detractors to enter the party office.
Santosh was appointed national joint general secretary in charge of the southern states in 2014, and was elevated to the post of general secretary (organisation) of the BJP in 2019. From 2019 onwards, he has carried out crucial tasks like changing chief ministers in many states such as Gujarat, Tripura, and Uttarakhand without a hitch. He was known to be keen on creating new leadership and spotting new, young faces committed to the Sangh and the BJP.
A section of party men accused Santosh of having chief ministerial ambitions and for this reason, ensuring that Shettar and K.S. Eshwarappa exit the party and electoral scene, respectively. While some people accuse Santosh of preferring Brahmin candidates, his supporters say if that was the case, “would he have been instrumental in bringing in three deputy CMs of different castes?”
