Another rebellion brewing in BJP against Yeddyurappa’s leadership

The Hindu

• It is led by Eshwarappa; Ananth Kumar is also part of it

 

Bangalore, 17 March 2011: At a time when Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has come under attack from the Opposition over the issue of a trust comprising his family members receiving huge donations from private firms, a banner of revolt against his leadership has been raised within the Bharatiya Janata Party.

 

 
B.S. Yeddyurappa and K.S. Eshwarappa

 

About 50 party MLAs, who met under the leadership of party State president K.S. Eshwarappa and national general secretary Ananth Kumar late on Wednesday night here at the party office, decided to complain against Mr. Yeddyurappa to the party high command on four issues. According to sources, their main grouse is that the image of the party and the government has been dented due to alleged involvement of Chief Minister’s family members in various scandals.

 

The other grievances of MLAs are alleged interference in constituency-related issues of MLAs, namely, transfer of officials etc., by Mr. Yeddyurappa’s family members; caste-based bias in the government and failure to provide political position to senior party workers. They also decided to take up the issue with party senior leader Arun Jaitley and national general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan, who is in-charge of Karnataka affairs.

 

According to sources in the BJP, a group of party leaders have initiated the process of eliciting the views of party legislators on Mr. Yeddyurappa’s leadership. It is said Mr. Eshwarappa and Mr. Ananth Kumar themselves are in the forefront of such an exercise demanding leadership change.

 

Already these leaders, including five Ministers and about 20 legislators, are said to have held a meeting in Bangalore late on Tuesday night. According to sources, this group is upset over Mr. Yeddyurappa’s style of functioning, hich they describe as “unilateral”.

 

They have decided to meet only at the party office as they think that they are not indulging in any dissidence and that their endeavour is to refurbish the party image.

 

Meanwhile, Mr. Yeddyurappa surprised everybody by making a sudden visit to the meeting of MLAs at the party office on Wednesday night with some of his supporters, including Excise Minister M.P. Renukacharya. After emerging out of the meeting, Mr. Yeddyurappa, who apparently did not answer queries by presspersons, reportedly hit his driver when the latter delayed to move the vehicle in the full glare of television camera crew, who continued to capture the incident. Some of the leaders continued to hold parleys at Mr. Eshwarappa’s residence on Wednesday night.