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Leadership tussle in Karnataka leaves CM embarrassed
The tussle
in Karnataka's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued
Thursday as the central party leadership snubbed the beleaguered
Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and a section of legislators
huddled
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Bangalore: In fresh
trouble for Karnataka's BJP government, eight ministers, loyal to
scam-hit former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, quit Friday to
pressure the party leadership to remove Chief Minister D.V.
Sadananda Gowda. Two more are likely to follow suit.
The ministers are Jagadish Shettar (rural development), C.M.
Udasi(public works), Murugesh Nirani (industries), V. Somanna
(housing), Umesh Katti (agriculture), Basavaraj Bommai (water
resources), Revu Naik Belamagi (libraries and animal husbandry),
and M.P. Renukacharya (excise).
Gowda received the resignation letters and told the ministers that
the decision on them will be taken by the party high command,
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sources said.
Two more Yeddyurappa loyalist ministers, Shobha Karandlaje (power)
and Raju Gowda (small scale industries), are also expected to meet
Gowda later and submit their resignations.
In New Delhi, BJP general secretary in charge of Karnataka affairs
Dharmendra Pradhan said, "The leadership is in touch with all
important Karnataka leaders".
"We are hopeful the crisis will be resolved soon," he said.
In Bangalore, Udasi justified the move to quit the ministry. "For
several months there were differences between the chief minister
and several ministers. Since there was no resolution of this
issue, we have quit."
"We waited all these days for decision of our high command. We
cannot wait any longer," he said after the eight met Gowda here
and gave him the letters of resignation.
"Our demand is to make Jagadish Shettar the chief minister. We are
hopeful that the party leaders will accept it," added Udasi.
If the BJP high command does not act on the resignation letters,
several lawmakers loyal to Yeddyurappa may also quit to keep the
pressure up for Gowda's removal.
"Next step is resignation by legislators loyal to Yeddyurappa,"
B.P. Harish, a staunch follower of the former chief minister, told
reporters.
The eight ministers and several lawmakers met Yeddyurappa late
Friday to decide their next steps in their campaign for leadership
change in the state.
The Karnataka development is bound to severely embarrass the BJP
as it comes ahead of next month's presidential poll, where the
party is backing former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma against the
ruling United Progressive Alliance candidate, former finance
minister Pranab Mukherjee.
The party may be left red-faced if it does not solve the crisis
before the voting scheduled for July 19 as there is every
possibility of the dissidents in Karnataka voting for Mukherjee.
Early this month the BJP was left embarrassed as 12 party
lawmakers voted for an Independent candidate in the polls to the
legislative council.
Yeddyurappa and his group are pushing for Shettar to replace Gowda.
This strategy was adopted after Yeddyurappa failed to convince BJP
national leaders to again make him the chief minister, in spite of
around a dozen corruption and illegal cases against him in
Karnataka courts.
He lost all hopes after the Central Bureau of Investigation
started its probe into mining bribery charges against him on the
direction of the Supreme Court.
The BJP came to power for the first time in Karnataka in May 2008
with Yeddyurappa as chief minister. He quit July last year over
mining bribery charges and Gowda took over Aug 4.
The four-year BJP rule has been marred by scams and dissidence.
Around 20 of the 120 BJP lawmakers, including Yeddyurappa, in the
225-member assembly, are fighting corruption and illegal land deal
cases.
Assembly elections are due May next year. There is speculation
that the polls may be advanced to December this year in view of
the unending problems faced by the ruling BJP.
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