BENGALURU: The first meeting between BJP president Amit Shah and state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa, post the embarrassing denial of ticket to the former chief minister's son B.Y. Vijayendra, was anything with the Lingayat strongman finding that not only was his son off the Varuna grid, he too would only feature in less than a handful of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's high profile campaign.
Sources said with the Congress playing up the tainted Reddy brothers role in selection of candidates and electioneering, Mr Shah, said to be taken aback by the bad publicity generated by the induction of the Reddy brothers and their relatives, decided to keep even Mr Yeddyurappa away from rallies scheduled to be addressed by Mr Modi beginning May 1. As a face -saver, BSY was apparently told that for the maximum utilization of resources, both he, Amit Shah and PM Modi would not address all rallies jointly.
Sources in the party said Mr Shah was upset with the manner in which the supporters of Mr Vijayendra resorted to violence over denial of a ticket to contest against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's son Dr Yathindra in Varuna constituency. The closed door meeting with Mr Yeddyurappa was attended by general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, Muralidhar Rao, and Union ministers D V Sadananda Gowda and H N Ananth Kumar.
On mine baron and former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, sources said the leadership decided to ask him not to campaign for the party in public. "The party does not want to lose the perception battle too. Even though Mr Yeddyurappa went to jail, his popularity, caste calcuation are different from that of Mr Reddy. Therefore, Mr Reddy has been asked to work behind the scenes," sources added.
