Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has again received a rap from the Bharatiya Janata Party high command. In an embarrassing development for both the Chief Minister and Revenue Minister R. Ashok, the BJP central leadership has asked its State unit to scrap a committee formed to choose the mayor and deputy mayor candidates for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
The committee, led by MLA S. Raghu, had been constituted a few days ago after the Chief Minister and Mr. Ashok met Bengaluru city MLAs to discuss elections to the post of mayor and deputy mayor. The committee, which has already met, was supposed to submit its recommendation to the Chief Minister.
However, the BJP central leadership is learnt to have asked that the panel be scrapped, hours before the State core committee met in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
According to sources, the BJP high command is upset with Mr. Yediyurappa and Mr. Ashok as there is no practice of setting up such a committee without taking the party organisation into confidence.
The formation of the committee was seen by the party high command as a move by the chief minister and a few other leaders, including Mr. Ashok, to gain control of the BBMP. The high command is learnt to be annoyed that such moves are recurring despite repeated warnings.
A fortnight ago, the party high command had reportedly taken exception to the manner in which transfer of officials were being effected in the State after the BJP formed the government.
Interestingly, the BJP central leadership scraped the committee through its State president Nalin Kumar Kateel clarified that no such committee had been formed. Terming the media reports on formation of the committee as ‘far from true’, he had said that the State unit would choose the mayor candidates in consultation with leaders of Bengaluru.
Referring to the mayoral elections, scheduled for October 1, BJP leader Arvind Limbavali on Wednesday told reporters that the party core committee would meet on September 30 to decide the party’s strategy.
