This is the third cabinet restructuring since BS Yediyurappa took office after the collapse of the JDS-Congress
Highlight
- Cabinet expansion seems to favor the field of BS Yediyurappa: BJP leaders
- Yediyurappa challenges them to lodge the complaint with the party leadership
- Cabinet changes occurred after Yediyurappa met Amit Shah in Delhi.
Bangalore:
A brawl has broken out in Karnataka’s ruling BJP with several leaders beating up Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa over a cabinet expansion that strongly favors his side.
Faced with public attacks from the men of his party, Mr. Yediyurappa challenged them to take their complaint to the party leadership.
“If the BJP MLAs have any objections, they can go to Delhi, meet with our national leaders and give them all the information and complaints they have. I will not object to that, but I ask that you do not damage the reputation of the party by speaking badly, “”, the chief minister told reporters in Bengaluru.
He added that the central leaders of the BJP would attend to their complaints.
Some BJP leaders openly accused the Prime Minister of including in his 17-month-old cabinet only those who had “blackmailed” him or were in his inner circle.
“Yediyurappa only considered and named those who blackmailed him with a CD and paid him a lot of money. Two were appointed ministers and one person was appointed political secretary after all three used the CD to blackmail him,” said BJP leader Basanagouda R. Patil.
“Loyalty, caste, seniority, region was not considered, all that was considered was CD and blackmail. Yediyurappa completely ignored workers loyal to the party like us and those who blackmailed him, made a CD and planned to overthrow their government have become ministers, “he was furious.
Patil is among a dozen BJP leaders who are furious at being ignored for a cabinet position and are not holding back.
Other dissidents are H Vishwanath, MP Kumaraswamy, Satish Reddy, Shivanagowda Nayak, Thippareddy and even Yediyurappa’s close aide, MP Renukacharya.
Yesterday, seven new ministers joined Yediyurappa’s cabinet: MTB Nagaraj, Umesh Katti, Aravind Limbavali, Murugesh Nirani, R Shankar, CP Yogeshwar and Angara S.
At least three of them, Umesh Katti, Arvind Limbavali and Murugesh Nirani, are considered loyal to Yediyurappa.
MTB Nagaraj and CP Yogeshwar are congressional defectors and R Shankar was an independent who was appointed minister in the Congress-JDS coalition government just before its fall last year.
The cabinet changes, the third since Yediyurappa took office following the collapse of the Congressional-JDS government following the 17 MLA rebellion, took place after the Chief Minister met with Interior Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Sunday. .
Congressional leader DK Sivakumar made a deep foray into infighting within the BJP and called for an investigation into the blackmail allegations.
“The BJP is now the ‘Janata Blackmailers Party’. The MLA themselves and BJP leaders are accusing CM Yediyurappa of having been bribed and blackmailed during the expansion of the cabinet. These statements by the BJP leaders should be investigated by a Acting Supreme Court (HC) judge and enforcement agencies like ED (Enforcement Directorate) must register suo-motu a case, “tweeted Mr. Sivakumar.
The Karnataka unit of the BJP insisted that despite the heartburn, all is well. “Disappointment is natural. It can be genuine in some cases. It took a long time … but there is no real problem for the BJP,” said Minister of State Suresh Kumar.
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