State BJP leaders cut sorry figure before Amit Shah

Findings of an internal survey, indicating that only 12 out of the BJP’s 17 sitting MPs are in a position to win the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, have become a cause for concern for the state party leaders.e state BJP, led by its president B S Yeddyurappa, has been chanting the ‘Mission 22’ mantra and exuding confidence of winning as many seats with a landslide margin.

The state leaders were, however, left red-faced recently, when it was pointed out to them that garnering so many seats wouldn’t be such an easy feat.

Without the knowledge of the state party leaders, the central BJP has carried out a survey, the findings of which were revealed by BJP national president Amit Shah during his visit to Bengaluru last week.

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Shah, who sought to know the basis on which such a target had been set, is later said to have pulled up the state leaders for their miscalculation. Sources said that when Shah pointed out that only 12 sitting MPs stood the chance of winning their seats, the leaders were caught unawares.

The state leaders defended their estimation, by saying that they were also banking on the Modi-Shah juggernaut to work its magic this time too, like it had during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the 2018 Assembly elections.

It is learnt that there is opposition to the candidatures of Udupi-Chikkamagalur MP Shobha Karandlaje, Mysore-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha, Koppal MP Karadi Sanganna, Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and Bijapur MP Ramesh Jigajinagi, owing to various factors.

While Bagalkot MP P C Gaddigoudar had himself announced that he had decided to retire from electoral politics, the party is found struggling to zero in on a candidate for Bellary, a constituency which it had lost to the Congress during the bypolls in November.

Though Molakalmuru MLA B Sriramulu’s name is doing the rounds, the party, wary of its numbers diminishing in the Assembly, does not want to field a sitting MLA. The party is also not in favour of fielding Sriramulu’s sister J Shantha.

Though the party has little or no presence in Gulbarga, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Chikkaballapur constituencies, the state leaders are said to have told Shah that they were in a good position to win the elections here.