Bengaluru: The meeting of newly-appointed BJP state office bearers on Saturday, is likely to witness noisy scenes with disgruntled second rung leaders deciding to bring up the ‘autocratic’ behaviour of party state president B.S. Yeddyurappa before Karnataka in-charge Murulidhar Rao.
The detractors of Mr Yeddyurappa held a meeting in the residence of Opposition leader in the Legislative Council, K.S. Eshwarappa on Friday and discussed their future course of action. Party General Secretary C.T. Ravi, Vice Presidents Bhanu Prakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana, former MLCs and MLAs were present at the meeting.
Leader who attended the meeting told DC that in spite of the central leadership’s instructions, Mr. Yeddyurappa continues to take autocratic decisions without consulting core committee leaders. With the office bearers meeting slated to begin at the party office at 10 am, the disgruntled leaders will meet at 8 am and discuss the issues to be raised in the meeting.
“First, we will raise the issues before Mr. Rao and seek his intervention. We hope he will take this up with Yeddyurappa and resolve the issues. If Yeddyurappa refuse to budge, we will again meet in the evening and decide on our next plan including meeting party national president Amit Shah”, a leader confided.
“Without holding consultations with district core committees, Mr Yeddyurappa has appointed district presidents. For instance, in Ballari, he appointed BSR Congress leader S. Gurulinganna Gowda as the BJP Ballari district president, Mr. Gowda is a close associate of mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy. The CBI had raided Gurulinganna’s house in 2011 with regard to illegal mining cases. When BSR Congress MLAs voted for the Congress in the recent RS elections, how can our party president appoint a BSR Congress leader as district president?,” the leader questioned.
Another leader who attended the meeting said, “Mr Yeddyurappa has ignored core committee leaders while taking decisions. The old core committee still exists, central leaders have not given their nod to Yeddyurappa to constitute a new core committee.”
