RAMANAGAR: With the BJP candidate L Chandrashekar deciding to withdraw his name from the contest, the chinks in party’s armour have been exposed. The humiliation caused by BJP candidate’s move to quit the fray and return to Congress is expected to force the party’s national leadership to take corrective action.
The fissures within the party and lack of cohesion among the senior leaders of the party have been repeatedly exposed since the day party state president BS Yeddyurappa quit Chief Minister’s post without taking the floor test as the party failed to muster the numbers.
The ongoing bypoll too exposed the lack of unity and the collective zeal to accomplish the mission as many senior leaders like Jagadish Shettar and Prahlad Joshi were hardly seen in the campaign. Only BS Yeddyurappa, Govind Karjol, KS Eshwarappa, CT Ravi, Shobha Karandlaje, Sriramulu, Aravind Limbavali were among the leaders who slogged out, while R Ashok, union minister DV Sadananda Gowda and a few others made their presence felt partially.
With Yeddyurappa forced to focus more on Shivamogga where his son BY Raghavendra is the candidate, and the spirit of collective leadership not showing up, the BJP campaign was in total contrast to coalition partners Congress and JD(S), who showed greater zeal to win with CM HD Kumaraswamy, former PM HD Deve Gowda, former CM Siddaramaiah, Congress strongman DK Shivakumar slogging in tandem.
“The shocker in Ramanagara was needed for BJP as the party had refused to learn from its past mistakes,” said political analyst Harish Ramaswamy.
Chandrashekar, son of Congress MLC CM Lingappa was inducted into the party just 3 weeks ago and was rewarded with party ticket ignoring the aspirations of the cadres who have tolled for the party over many decades.
“The humiliation in Ramanagara could hasten the process of the proposed shake up in state BJP’s top leadership,” said a BJP leader.
“Yeddyurapa’s style of leadership itself could come under scrutiny from the BJP national leadership as the Congress-JD(S) leadership is scoring success after success in outsmarting and outgunning the state BJP leadership,” Harish Ramaswamy added.
BJP mulls supporting an independent
Ballari: Congress leader C M Lingappa said his son L Chandrashekar committed a “political suicide” by retiring from the fray in Ramanagara assembly constituency. “He was contesting on a national party ticket. What my son has done is an act of cowardice and his act is a political suicide. He should have at least contested the election and then come out immaterial of the result,” Lingappa said here on Thursday.
We got clue about his withdrawal, says BSY
Shivamogga: BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa said party leaders did not go to Ramanagara to campaign for candidate L Chandrashekar as the party had got a clue about the candidate backing off a week ago. Yeddyurappa said Minister D K Shivakumar and his brother D K Suresh ‘bought’ Chandrashekar with money. “We doubted about Chandrashekar earlier. He has deceived both BJP and people.”