Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa donned the role of reconciler on Saturday as he spent all day at his residence in Bengaluru trying to assuage the feelings of disappointed poll ticket aspirants from the city to make them fall in line ahead of Assembly bypolls.
A day after the party completed the process of announcing candidates for all 15 Assembly seats going to the polls, Mr. Yediyurappa focussed on winning over disappointed ticket aspirants who are on the verge of becoming rebels following the party’s decision to field disqualified MLAs.
The Chief Minister’s focus was on Mahalakshmi Layout and Yeshwantpur constituencies, which has disappointed ticket aspirants. First, he met Harish and N.L. Narendra Babu from Mahalakshmi Layout at his house and held consultations for a long time. Later, he also spoke to cine actor Jaggesh, who had unsuccessfully contested the previous Assembly polls from Yeshwantpur, to convince him to work for the party’s candidate, S.T. Somashekhar. BJP leader and former MLA from this constituency, Shobha Karandlaje, too attended the meeting.
The party’s pointsmen for the byelections to constituencies in Bengaluru city — Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Housing Minister V. Somanna — were present at the meeting.
Aiming for stability
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said that “political stability” was the main agenda for the BJP in the forthcoming byelections.
“The people of the State want political stability as only that can ensure good governance. Hence, I am confident that they will back BJP candidates in the bypolls,” he said. He expressed confidence that the party would make a clean sweep in the byelections. Alleging that Opposition parties were in disarray, he said such a situation would turn out to be advantageous for the BJP.
