Bangalore, Nov 16 - Karnataka Assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar, a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in the state, is set to return to active politics at a time when the party's first government in southern India is battling dissidence.

The 44-year-old Shettar, whose family has been associated with BJP's predecessor Jana Sangh, will join Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's cabinet Tuesday or Wednesday after resigning as speaker Monday.

The amiable leader from north Karnataka district of Dharwad, 420 km from here, became an unlikely hero of the dissidents led by mining magnates and minister-brothers G. Janardhana Reddy and G. Karunakara Reddy.

Shettar, born Dec 17, 1955, in Kerur village of Bagalkot, another north Karnataka district around 500 km from Bangalore, was always a reluctant speaker. He was keen to be a minister when the BJP formed its government for the first time in Karnataka in May 2008.

A commerce and law graduate and lawyer by profession, Shettar nurses a grouse against Yeddyurappa for pushing him to a non-political position to checkmate the growth of a possible alternative leader.

The Reddys found this a fertile platform to use in their battle to unseat Yeddyurappa. They knew it would be suicidal to project either of them as chief ministerial candidate.

They also did not have any one in their camp of legislators to match the stature Yeddyurappa had acquired by leading the party to a near clear majority in the 2008 assembly polls.

Shettar, a shy personality, thus became their alternative to Yeddyurappa.

Though far from being as aggressive as Yeddyurappa, Shettar fulfilled many other requirements to succeed him.

He, like Yeddyurappa, belongs to the politically strong Lingayat community. He hails from north Karnataka, where the community is in large numbers.