The cold war between BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa and national joint organisational secretary B L Santhosh has come to the fore again, this time over Bengaluru mayoral polls.
Yeddyurappa and Santhosh, both of whom have been closely associated with the party at the grassroots, have not been seeing eye to eye for some time now.
Santhosh took to social media indirectly hitting out at former deputy chief minister R Ashoka for the party failing to get its candidate elected as mayor of Bengaluru. Yeddyurappa strongly defended Ashoka. Election to the post of Bengaluru mayor was held on Friday.
In his Facebook page, Santhosh posted a message taking a leaf out of ancient philosopher Chanakya’s quotes. “Those who do not have team spirit and share the credit for victory can never win.”
Ashoka has been accused by his rivals in the state BJP, especially in the (Union Minister) D V Sadananda Gowda camp of not taking party leaders into confidence while working out a strategy to secure the required numbers for winning the mayoral polls. The BJP was just seven short of the magic number of 130 in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council to secure the mayor post. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in Bengaluru on Sunday, Yeddyurappa came to the rescue of Ashoka.
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“Ashoka made sincere efforts. We should not be blaming him. In fact, I congratulate Ashoka for his efforts,” Yeddyurappa said.
He said Union Minister Ananth Kumar and Nirmala Sitharaman could not make it to the BBMP Council on election day due to unavoidable reasons.
Yeddyurappa said the BJP decided to field a candidate as Ashoka had expressed confidence of a win.
Santhosh is unhappy with the style of functioning of Yeddyurappa. The former chief minister, for his part, is of the opinion that Santhosh has been working against him.
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