BENGALURU: The simmering feud between state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa and senior party leader KS Eshwarappa reached an anticlimax on Tuesday, with the party suspending Eshwarappa aide and former Bengaluru mayor D Venkatesh Murthy. The strong action was taken over anti-party activities, or more specifically, that of the Sangolli Rayanna Brigade, of which Murthy is general secretary.
A letter by the BJP city president P N Sadashiva stated that despite being a member of the BJP, Murthy was working against party interests in Basavanagudi Assembly constituency and Bengaluru city. Sadashiva also stated that Murthy had not replied to a show cause notice and hence was being suspended from the primary membership of the party.
The action against three-time corporator Murthy is seen as a strong message to Eshwarappa, who is Leader of Opposition in the Council, to refrain from propping up the Rayanna Brigade. Despite repeated warnings from both state and central leadership, Eshwarappa had refused to dissociate himself from the Brigade.
On Tuesday morning too, Eshwarappa who was attending a Brigade convention in Kalaburagi, brazenly announced that since Yeddyurappa rejected the support of the Brigade, they had decided to keep distance from the BJP and build it as an apolitical group. “The Brigade does not intend to work for the success of Yeddyurappa or BJP in the elections.
As of now the Brigade has given liberty to its members to contest from any party or back any party forwarding the cause of dalits and oppressed class,” Eshwarappa said.
The Brigade, floated to mobilise backward classes for the upcoming Assembly elections, has been a cause of friction between rivals Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa. Over the past few months, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav and Muralidhar Rao, the general secretary in charge of Karnataka affairs, had on different occasions issued a strict warning to members not to undertake any activities outside BJP or face disciplinary action. But Eshwarappa had continued holding massive conventions across Karnataka. Another convention is scheduled in Padmanabhanagar in Bengaluru on Wednesday. ‘Brigade will not support BJP’:P7