The Hindu : Front Page : Reddy brothers keep leadership guessing

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Sunday, Nov 08, 2009
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Reddy brothers keep leadership guessing

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: The war of nerves between the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership and the two Reddy brothers of Bellary continued throughout Saturday till late evening when “word” finally came that one of them would “soon” head for the capital to “clinch” the compromise “deal” worked out for Karnataka on Friday.

Throughout the day, G. Janardhana Reddy and G. Karunakara Reddy, who have been demanding the replacement of B.S. Yeddyurappa as Chief Minister, kept the leadership guessing. Would they show up here and agree to hold a press conference to say that all has ended well? But that did not happen.

“There is many a slip between the cup and the lip,” was how a senior leader summed up the situation in the morning. The “deal” is done; the Chief Minister has agreed to almost all demands of the Reddys barring his own resignation; but “clinching” of the deal remains.

In the morning, the Chief Minister announced to some journalists that the “crisis is over,” and left for Vaishno Devi. The party expected the Reddys to reach the capital in the afternoon and was hoping to organise the “clincher” joint press conference with the Chief Minister by evening. But that was not to be.

On his return from Vaishno Devi, Mr. Yeddyurappa rushed to a meeting of party leaders at the residence of Venkaiah Naidu, and later called on president Rajnath Singh.

The party now expects that the Reddys will be here on Sunday to publicly say “yes” to the deal. What has annoyed the BJP leadership is that they continue to make statements from Bangalore that they remain firm on replacing the Chief Minister. While an influential section of the central leadership has been saying there will be no leadership change, another section thinks that Mr. Yeddyurappa would go. “That is what the Reddys were also hoping for and, therefore, they were holding out,” said one leader. A third section feels no negotiations should have been held with the Reddys even if that means the loss of the government.

Under the compromise, the Chief Minister was to reshuffle his Cabinet to drop Rural Development Minister Shobha Karandlaje and induct Speaker Jagadish Shettar.

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