The former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's strategy of pressuring the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to reinstate him as Chief Minister suffered a setback with the party high command on Friday firmly ruling out a leadership change.
“D.V. Sadananda Gowda is heading the Government now. The question of changing him does not arise,” BJP president Nitin Gadkari told presspersons here after attending a party programme.
He hinted that Mr. Yeddyurappa may be considered for a pivotal position after he is cleared of corruption charges. “Yeddyurappa is our party's popular leader as well as the popular face of the party in Karnataka. The party respects him. The Lokayukta report has made certain charges against him. We have our reservations about the Lokayukta report and feel that it has done injustice to him. He too has challenged the Lokayukta report, and we hope that soon he would get justice. When he gets justice, we will reward him,” he said.
Mr. Gadkari played down the February 27 deadline set by Mr. Yeddyurappa for the party to take a decision on reinstating him as Chief Minister, saying that “there is no deadline”. The present crisis in the party is a “small problem”. The party's core committee will meet in Delhi (probably on March 3) to resolve this problem. The focus of the State leaders now should be on the Udupi-Chikmagalur Lok Sabha byelection to be held on March 18, he said. President of the State unit of the BJP K.S. Eshwarappa later told presspersons that Mr. Gadkari had assured party leaders that he would visit the State after the Lok Sabha byelection to discuss the “problematic issues”. On Mr. Yeddyurappa abiding by the party high command's decision, Mr. Eshwarappa said, “Everybody in the party will have to abide by the national president's directions.”
Earlier, without mentioning Mr. Yeddyurappa by name, Mr. Gadkari is learnt to have given a stern message against caste politics and putting self-interest ahead of the party in his hour-long speech at the party's brainstorming session. “The party is bigger than individuals and the nation is bigger than the party. Similarly, ours is a cadre-based party that believes in ideology and not caste politics.”
The brainstorming session, which was supposed to have been a two-day affair, did not last two hours and was wound up after Mr. Gadkari's speech, apparently to prevent the Yeddyurappa camp from embarrassing the party by raising the demand for leadership change or abstaining from the latter part of the meeting.
Most of the party leaders including Mr. Yeddyurappa, Mr. Sadananda Gowda, national general secretaries Dharmendra Pradhan and Ananth Kumar and Mr. Eshwarappa took part in the brainstorming session.
