The rift in the State BJP came to the fore again at the executive committee meeting at Mysuru on Saturday, with party president B S Yeddyurappa making ample use of his presidential address to take indirect potshots at his bete noire K S Eshwarappa and other detractors.
Yeddyurappa at a press conference on Friday had claimed that all was well in the party but his Saturday address proved otherwise. Yeddyurappa urged the party cadres to bring Other Backward Class and Dalit leaders into the party fold.
"Approach OBC and Dalit leaders and bring them to the party. They are all in favour of the BJP and not any parallel organisation," he said taking a dig at Eshwarappa's association with Sangolli Rayanna Brigade, a forum of OBCs and Dalits.
Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa did not greet or acknowledge each other. While the BJP president mentioned the names of all the leaders on the dais, he only referred to Eshwarappa as 'leader of the opposition'.
While there were five sessions on day one, Eshwarappa was not given a forum to speak. Eshwarappa's name does not figure in the list of speakers for the concluding day too.
Yeddyurappa recalled that in 1991, when he was state president and Union Minister Ananth Kumar was general secretary, scion of Mysore royal family, the late Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar, and the chairmen of first and second Backward Classes Commission L G Havanur and T V Venkataswamy respectively, had joined the BJP.
“Their entry into the BJP did not make us insecure. Instead we worked together to strengthen the party at the grassroots,” Yeddyurappa said, making an indirect reference to Eshwarappa and his supporters' criticism that those associated with the Karnataka Janata Party (founded by Yeddyurappa) were getting prominence in the BJP. Eshwarappa had recently organised a "Save BJP" convention in Bengaluru where Yeddyurappa was blamed for sidelining party loyalists.
Later in the day, MLC K B Shanappa is said to have been openly critical of the rift while placing the political resolution before the meeting. “Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa are working in different directions despite being in the same party. If this continues, we can all forget about Mission 150 (winning that many seats) in the 2018 assembly election,” Shanappa said.
The two-day meeting is being held amid a feud between Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa, which hit a new low in the last few days, prompting the central leadership to depute Muralidhar Rao, BJP national general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, to Bengaluru for damage control.
Eshwarappa has been openly criticising the style of functioning of Yeddyurappa, blaming him for taking unilateral decisions and denting the morale of party workers. His continued association with the Rayanna Brigade, has upset Yeddyurappa.
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