Differences within BJP prolonged rebellion

Political circles in the State and the capital are agog with stories over the role played by leaders relating to the Karnataka crisis and regarding the delay in resolving the crisis within BJP’s state unit.

Speculation was rife here on Sunday that a section of the leadership did not want an immediate end to the crisis triggered by the dissidents who wanted nothing less than Yeddyurappa’s head.

According to sources in one camp, the leaders opposing Rajnath Singh, who is understood to have lent his support to the CM, did not want an early solution to the tangle and this camp wanted the rebel Reddy brothers to extract their pound of flesh before the crisis was resolved. But that was on the presumption that Yeddyurappa would cling to his post.

It is because of this, the pro-Rajnath camp argues, that the leaders of both sides were asked to come to Delhi for further talks. They also point out that the Karnataka crisis was further highlighted in Delhi much to the discomfiture of the BJP national president.
Rajnath Singh has been receiving flak day after day – first it was the Lok Sabha defeat of the BJP, followed by the crisis in the Rajasthan unit of the party where former CM Vasundhara Raje defied his diktat to resign as Opposition Leader in Assembly. The string continued with the drubbing in the recent Assembly elections in three states. Rajnath Singh’s tenure as party chief comes to end next month.

They were also unhappy that Karnataka Assembly Speaker Jagdish Shettar was made to come to Delhi. The Speaker, who is a non-partisan person, was made a party not only to the BJP but being as one belonging to a particular camp, they added.

BJP MP D B Chandre Gowda went on record over the presence of the Speaker in Delhi. “I have nothing against Shettar but as Speaker, he should not have come to Delhi”, Gowda, once a Speaker himself, said. Shettar met BJP leader Arun Jaitley at Bangalore South MP Anant Kumar’s house on Sunday.

In the midst of all the intrigue, the role of a senior party leader from Karnataka, known to be opposed to Yeddyurappa, was the issue of discussion here. According to party sources, this leader held talks with the Reddy brothers and took a chopper of a Congress MLA, who is also a businessman, to reach Hubli to meet one of the top leaders now in contention for a top post. The rebellion came to the fore the next day.