Dissidents raise a call to save BJP in Karnataka
A festering factional feud within the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took centre stage on Thursday, with dissidents holding a meeting in Bengaluru, criticising the stewardship of the state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa and also asking cadres to “save” the party.
Differences within the party had recently surfaced after the BJP lost byelections held for two seats in the state earlier this month. The meeting was organised by 24 dissidents, who had written a letter to the state leadership of the party asking for changes in Yeddyurappa’s functioning.
“Yeddyurappa quit the BJP and joined the Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) and look what hap- pened. In the 2013 assembly polls, the BJP was reduced to 40 seats and the KJP could only manage to win six seats,” senior leader KS Eshwarappa said. This, he said, had handed the Congress a majority of 122 seats in the state, which has 224 assembly constituencies. “Subsequently, Yeddyurappa told me that he made a mistake by quitting a party with such committed workers, a party we built together,” Eshwarappa said. “Why then is he now turning his back on these workers and appointing his supporters to head the various bodies within the party and not party workers who have worked towards making our party strong?”
The leaders said Yeddyurappa was undoing what many, along with him, had built. “All we had asked for was that Yeddyurappa should meet us and discuss our concerns,” Sogadu Shivanna, a former minister, said. “Instead, we received notices from the party, accusing us of working against it.” The dissidents also took offence against Yeddyurappa’s statement earlier in the day that attending the dissisents’ meeting would be considered an anti-party activity.