'BJP efforts to retain BSY is an eyewash'

 As the BJP top leadership steps up its efforts to retain B S Yeddyurappa in the party, close aides of the former chief minister on Sunday dismissed it as an eyewash.

The Yeddyurappa faction feels that the efforts would be used by the party against their leader during the campaign for the upcoming Assembly polls, saying he ditched the BJP despite the party giving him a long rope.

“It’s all high drama. They know Yeddyurappa has made up his mind to launch a new party. These efforts are only for public consumption,” said former union minister Dhananjaya Kumar, a loyalist of Yeddyurappa.

Top sources in the party admitted that they would have no option but to play the “the betrayal card” against Yeddyurappa, after he officially quits the party.

The BJP will be handicapped in using corruption charges against Yeddyurappa as its line of attack during the election campaign, and betrayal card is the only alternative, the sources added.

Yeddyurappa has started dispatching personal invites to his loyalists and also to MLAs and MPs who have not closely identified with any group in the party for the Tuesday’s luncheon meeting in Bangalore.

The luncheon meeting is being portrayed as a show of strength by Yeddyurappa.