New Delhi: Faced with a brewing rebellion over ticket distribution in Karnataka, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has a stern message for the state’s BJP cadre — rally behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi or face consequences.
With Karnataka gearing up to vote for its 28 parliamentary seats and the BJP dropping at least nine of its 25 sitting MPs in the state, ticket distribution has caused bitterness within the party — much of it directed at party leader and Lingayat strongman B.S. Yediyurappa and his son B.Y. Vijayendra, the current state BJP chief.
According to party sources, with dissent brewing in seats such as Chitradurga, Davanagere, Tumkur, and Chikkaballapur, Shah, who travelled to Bengaluru for a coordination meeting with the Janata Dal (Secular) last week, has sent out a message that candidate selection was “not done by (former CM) Yediyurappa or Vijayendra, or on anyone else’s recommendations but purely on winnability”.
The leaders have also been told that their political future in the party will depend on their actions, the sources said.
“Home Minister Amit Shah said at the meeting (last week) that it’s wrong to question Yediyurappa or Vijayendra over ticket distribution. They were told this wasn’t Yediyurappa’s or Vijayendra’s election. This is Prime Minister Modi’s election, and every party leader should ensure his victory,” one party source said, adding that factors such as caste and anti-incumbency were also taken into account while picking candidates.
Yediyurappa, Vijayendra, BJP leader and Karnataka’s Leader of Opposition R. Ashoka, and the party’s Karnataka in-charge Radha Mohan Agarwal attended this meeting.
Despite the stern message, however, some leaders remain defiant. According to sources, former BJP minister and six-time Chikkanayakanahalli MLA J.C. Madhuswamy, who had been angling for a ticket from Tumkur and has publicly opposed the BJP candidate V. Somanna, skipped the meeting. Meanwhile, ex-deputy chief minister K.S. Eshwarappa, who has also been sulking over the BJP’s nominations, was called for a meeting with the Delhi leadership but was eventually denied an audience.
However, despite Amit Shah’s assurances that Yediyurappa did not influence the ticket distribution, one senior BJP leader said that after last year’s assembly election, the party realised that the former chief minister was still an “undisputed mass leader” in the state and his opinion held weight.
Many tickets in the 2023 assembly elections were given based on suggestions from BJP’s national general secretary B.L. Santosh but most of them lost, this leader said.
“This time, many sitting MPs were dropped because of high anti-incumbency. Shobha (BJP general secretary and Udupi Chikmagalur MP Shobha Karandlaje) was shifted to Bengaluru. In Shettar’s case, it was Yediyurappa who made his candidature possible in consultation with the central leadership. V. Somanna was given a ticket despite his public digs at Yediyurappa,” the senior party leader said, adding that apart from the Lingayat strongman’s suggestions, feedback was also taken from other sources.
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Shimoga to Chitradurga — where rebellion brews
Upset with the party’s decision to field Yediyurappa’s other son B.Y. Raghavendra from Shimoga, Eshwarappa has already declared his intention to fight the election against him “even if Prime Minister Modi came to his home to dissuade him”.
The leader has been accusing the former chief minister of promoting his family while sidelining pro-Hindutva party leaders such as C.T. Ravi, Nalin Kateel, and Mysore MP Pratap Simha and Anantkumar Hegde, who’s considered close to Santosh.
According to sources, Eshwarappa had been called to Delhi for a meeting with Shah Wednesday but was turned back after it was learnt that he leaked this information to the media.
But this isn’t the only reason the central leadership is seemingly miffed with the former deputy CM. Sources said he had courted the party leadership’s displeasure last April after he turned on the phone speaker when the prime minister made a placatory call after denying him a ticket for the assembly polls.
Madhuswamy, meanwhile, has been opposing Karnataka’s former minister of housing and infrastructure development minister Somanna’s candidature by calling him an “outsider”.
There are other candidates, too, who are facing dissent. According to sources, in Chikkaballapur, BJP MLA S.R Vishwanath, who was eyeing a ticket for his Alok Vishwanath, had been publicly speaking out against former minister K. Sudhakar, while in Davangere, former minister M.P. Renukacharya was upset that he was overlooked for Gayathri Siddeshwara, wife of former MP G.M. Siddeshwara.
In Bidar, BJP MLAs Prabhu Chauhan and Sharanu Salagar have objected to the candidature of Union minister and sitting MP Bhagwanth Khuba, while in Belgavi, former CM Jagadish Shettar, who returned to the BJP in January after a brief stint with the Congress, has been facing protests from local party workers.
According to BJP sources, some of these challenges have been resolved. For instance, after vociferously protesting former deputy chief minister Govind Karjol’s nomination from Chitadurga, BJP MLA M. Chandrappa has now agreed to campaign for him.
“Former MLA Renukacharya has consented to campaign for Gayathri Siddeshwara. Koppal Koppal MP Karadi Sanganna Amarappa has been similarly mollified”.
Indeed, in a statement he issued after last week’s meeting with Shah, Renukacharya said that the group of dissidents had “decided to work for the party and prime minister as this is a national election”.
To ThePrint, he said he was campaigning for the BJP and had participated in a party meeting Sunday. “We apprised the home minister of our concerns last week. This election is about Modi ji”.
But with leaders like Eshwarappa still openly defiant, the party is looking at ways to placate him, sources said. “There’s still time,” one source said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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