The Bharatiya Janata Party has put off its plans to issue show-cause notices to its rebel MLAs, who attended the Haveri rally of Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP), following the suggestion from its high command that it should wait till the verdict of Gujarat Assembly elections scheduled on December 20 for any further action.
The party is also learnt to have decided to hold its crucial core committee meeting for taking a call on some of the important issues, including discipline, only after the announcement of the poll results.
It appears that the decision to put off taking action till the Gujarat results is on account of two reasons. The first: any action against the legislators is usually initiated in consultation with party central leaders. But the party’s leaders are now pre-occupied with the Gujarat poll results, which is crucial for the party. Hence, the State unit has to wait for the Gujarat verdict to give the central leaders’ time to act against the rebels.
The second reason revolves around a theory that the party may try to build on the tempo if it wins the Gujarat polls. It hopes that more number of rebel MLAs may return to the party fold and the fence-sitters may shun the dilemma of quitting if its Gujarat leader Narendra Modi wins the election for the third consecutive time. It would drive home a message that “Gujarat results” are the indication of things to come in the country.
This apart, four of the 14 rebel MLAs are learnt to have confirmed to the party leadership that they will return to the party. The party is making serious efforts to woo more of the rebel MLAs. When things are still fluid in this matter, the BJP leadership is in no mood to abort its plans of wooing the rebels by issuing show-cause notices in a hurry.
Meanwhile, KJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa continued to warn the BJP leadership that its government’s continuance would depend on his support. He reiterated that the “Jagadish Shettar government is a coalition of BJP and KJP”. However, the BJP sought to play down his remark. “If it is a coalition government, let him respond to our earlier challenge of bringing down the government by asking his supporters to withdraw support,” BJP sources said while referring to the reports that most of the Ministers in the Yeddyurappa camp were opposed to any proposal to give up their ministerial positions and that they were keen that the government should complete its full-term.
Shivappa’s visitors
The former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda called on party veteran leader B.B. Shivappa — who has been critical of the series of corruption cases involving party leaders — at his residence in Bangalore on Tuesday. Within hours, Mr. Yeddyurappa too called on Mr. Shivappa.
