JOIN USSenior BJP leaders on Sunday trained their guns on former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa at the party’s Vijay Sankalpa Yatre rallies in Shimoga and Haveri, accusing him of striking a secret alliance with the Congress ahead of the May 5 Assembly elections.
At both the rallies, the State BJP President Pralhad Joshi said Yeddyurappa had aligned with the Congress with the sole aim of defeating the BJP in the elections.
For political gains, Congress instigated Yeddyurappa to form his own party and thus divide the BJP. The Congress has blackmailed Yeddyurappa by threatening to get him arrested by the CBI, the way it dealt with the YSR Congress leader Y S Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, Yeddyurappa, a bitter critic of the Congress all through his political career, has refrained from uttering a word against the Congress and the Centre.
“Yeddyurappa has become a puppet in the hands of the Congress,” Joshi said at the convention at NES Grounds in Shimoga. Terming Yeddyurappa the most ‘selfish and casteist politician’ in the State, Deputy Chief Minister K S Eshwarappa said the KJP leader never kept his words.
“Several seers of the Veerashaiva community have told me that they will not back KJP in the coming Assembly polls. I am ready to even announce the names of those seers. The BJP has the support of all communities and will come back to power,” he claimed. At the Haveri rally, Eshwarappa said that those facing a CBI probe had no moral right to speak about Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar’s honesty.
Taking a dig at the KJP, former chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda said the KJP leaders had been setting deadlines ever since the party came into existence. But, none of these deadlines had materialised. Now, the KJP top brass has to fix ‘muhurat’ for the exit of its own leaders from the party. Indeed, many KPJ leaders are already quitting the party, he remarked.
“The KJP which took its birth at a massive rally in Haveri on December 9 would meet its end in the very town,” Gowda said.
Reacting to Yeddyurappa’s challenge that he would retire from politics if BJP wins 50 seats, Rajya Sabha member Ayanur Manjunath said at the Shimoga rally: “With all due respects to Yeddyurappa, we would take this as a challenge and prove our potential in the coming Assembly polls. Yeddyurappa should also announce the number of seats his party would win.”
Bommai bats for BJP
Putting to rest the speculations that he would quit the BJP, Water Resources Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday attended the Vijaya Sankalpa yatre rally in Haveri, reports DHNS from Haveri.
Addressing the convention, Bommai said that the people of Haveri have always supported the BJP and would continue to do so even in the future.
Without naming the Karnataka Janata Party, Bommai said people would teach a lesson to those indulging in false propaganda against the BJP.
“No party can pose a challenge to the BJP, which has come to power by taking up pro-people agitations,” he remarked. In recent months, political circles have been agog with reports that Bommai would quit the BJP and join the KJP.