The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has recently launched a State tour to attack the coalition government, had to face embarrassing moments as the dissidence within its Bengaluru city unit came to the fore on Sunday.
Five leaders absent
As many as five legislators from Bengaluru North, including the Bengaluru North MP, D. V. Sadananda Gowda, were conspicuous by their absence at an important meeting of leaders of Shakti Kendras (cluster of booths) of Bengaluru convened in the party State office here.
While those who skipped the meet cited personal reasons for their absence, it is learnt that their main grouse was differences on several issues with the party’s prominent city leader and the former deputy Chief Minister R. Ashok.
It is being said that the relationship between Mr. Ashok and Mr. Gowda, both from the Vokkaliga community, have soured of late. The supporters of Mr. Gowda accused Mr. Ashok of indulging in false political propaganda against him.
Their other complaint is that their request for initiating disciplinary action against those who indulged in anti-party activities has not been considered in Bengaluru north.
The MLAs who did not attend the meeting include Arvind Limbavali, S. Raghu, Ashwathnarayan and Suresh Kumar besides Narayanaswamy, MLC.
Their absence irked State president B.S. Yeddyurappa who directed Mr. Ashok and other top leaders of Bengaluru city to hold a meeting of party’s corporators from Bengaluru city.
It may be noted that the differences in the Bengaluru city unit of the party had earlier come to the fore even in November 2017 when BJP national president Amit Shah had launched the pre-poll campaign of Parivarthana yatra.
At that time, the party had failed to mobilise a good crowd for the inaugural function.
