The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

Karnataka BJP tussle, round two: old rival defies Yeddyurapp­a again

Months after patch-up, Eshwarappa holds rally and addresses Yeddyurapp­a: ‘You cannot act as you like’

- JOHNSON T A

A LONG-TIME feud between the BJP’S Karnataka president and former chief minister B S Yeddyurapp­a, and prominent backwardcl­assesleade­rseshwarap­pa,whichhad been patched up a few months ago, reportedly by BJP national president Amit Shah, has risen to the fore once again in the wake of the BJP’S loss in recent assembly bypolls.

Eshwarappa, a former deputy CM who has been attempting to assert himself as a counter to Yeddyurapp­a, defied the latter and organised a rally of an “apolitical” movement of backward classes and Dalits called “Rayanna Brigade” in Bengaluru Thursday.

The two leaders had clashed four months ago over the Rayanna Brigade — named after a backward classes warrior, Sangolli Rayana — and the matter was reportedly settled after the interventi­on of Shah in January this year. Eshwarappa was made head of the BJP’S other backward classes morcha and reportedly asked to desist from organising Rayanna Brigade convention­s without taking the party and Yeddyurapp­a into confidence.

Eshwarappa, who has emerged as a figurehead for leaders who find Yeddyurapp­a’s leadership “domineerin­g”, defied this by organising the rally. He spoke of the BJP’S failure to win bypolls to two seats in areas where Yeddyurapp­a’s Lingayat community has a large numerical presence, but which have traditiona­lly been Congress stronghold­s.

“When Amit Shah declared Yeddyurapp­a the party president and the next chief minister, we were happy and accepted it but you cannot act as you like and we cannot sit idle in this situation,” Eshwarappa at the rally Thursday. “Our leaders have taught us that the nation and the party are more important than individual­s. We have gathered here with this intention to move ahead.”

Eshwarappa asked Yeddyurapp­a why he had failed to call meetings of leaders disgruntle­d with his leadership as advised by Amit Shah in January. The former deputy CM said the Rayanna Brigade rally was held with the blessings of the party leadership.

Yeddyurapp­a, for his part, once again called the Rayanna Brigade rally an antiparty activity and blamed former RSS leader and current BJP national joint general secretary B L Santhosh for fomenting the dissent through Eshwarappa. “We will bring all this to the notice of the party leadership and an appropriat­e decision will be take,” Yeddyurapp­a said. The former chief minister said the Rayanna Brigade meetings are illegal since BJP national general secretary-incharge Muralidhar Rao and state general secretary N Ravikumar had asked BJP workers not to participat­e in it.

Yeddyurapp­a said the BJP had made Eshwarappa an MLC and leader of the opposition in the council despite the fact that he had finished fourth in the 2013 assembly polls. Eshwarappa has privately blamed Yeddyurapp­a, a leader from Shimoga, for his loss in a seat that is part of Shimoga.

Congress Chief Minister Siddaramai­ah, who like Eshwarappa is from the backwardcl­asses Kuruba community, has dismissed the internal feud in the BJP as a “drama” to attract attention across communitie­s in the run-up to the 2018 polls. He said Eshwarappa has never stridently attacked Yeddyurapp­a at the Rayanna Brigade rallies and has, in fact, stopped others from questionin­g the choice of Yeddyurapp­a as BJP’S CM candidate.

In January, at an event marking the 186th death anniversar­y of Sangolli Rayanna, Siddaramai­ah had called the creation of the Rayanna Brigade by the BJP and Eshwarappa an attempt to install Yeddyurapp­a as the next chief minister. “No real Kuruba must support the brigade which has been launched only to help Yeddyurapp­a,” Siddaramai­ah said at the event, questionin­g Eshwarappa’s commitment to the Kuruba community. Vishwendra Singh, 22, a driver with the Army Supply Corps, was a few kilometres from the Army camp in Kupwara, where his father, Subedar Bhoop Singh Gujjar, 46, was posted. He got to know that the camp had been attacked and, later, that his father had been killed. “He was not allowed to see our father,” said elder son Pushpendra Singh, 26, a daily wager. “Vishwendra was told he could see him only in Delhi. It was so distressin­g for my young brother, being so near... I don’t know why so many soldiers are getting killed and the government is doing nothing about it.”

Their village of Kherla Bujurg in Dausa’s Mahwa block has had a tradition of sending men to the Army. Bhoop Singh’s younger brother Mukesh, too, was in the Army.

“We were told about his death in the morning by an Army official. Our mother Rama Devi and family are grief-stricken. An Army officer told us the body would arrive by Friday afternoon,” Pushpendra said.

HAMZA KHAN

Hoping for new posting, he invited his parents to Kashmir

 ?? Express ?? Yeddyurapp­a and Eshwarappa (in jacket) at a function earlier this year.
Express Yeddyurapp­a and Eshwarappa (in jacket) at a function earlier this year.
 ?? Shuaib Masoodi ?? Army men in Kupwara, after the attack on their camp.
Shuaib Masoodi Army men in Kupwara, after the attack on their camp.
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