With former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa deciding to launch his own party, the BJP national leadership on Monday moved a step closer towards completing the long-pending process of appointing a new president for the state unit for the party.
Party's national president Nitin Gadkari on Monday summoned state BJP president K S Eshwarappa and MPs Prahlad Joshi and Nalinkumar Kateel, the front-runners for the post, to Delhi to hold talks.
The talks are likely to be held late on Monday night or Tuesday morning and BJP senior leader Arun Jaitley and in-charge of Karnataka BJP Dharmendra Pradhan would also be present.
The party is likely to appoint either of them (Joshi or Kateel) as the party president very soon as the RSS has also cleared their names, sources in the state BJP maintain.
The process of appointing the new president has been stalled till December with a hope that Yeddyurappa would fall in line with the party. But now with the Lingayat strongman publicly vouching to float his own party, the BJP national leaders have reportedly decided to complete the process as early as possible and also speed up its decisions relating to Karnataka.
"Since the elections are just six months away, the party cannot afford to lose time waiting for Yeddyurappa's decision as it needs to prepare for the elections," says a senior leader.
The party had reportedly offered Yeddyurappa the post of the chairman of the campaign committee. But he insisted for the state BJP president's post and wanted the party to announce him as the chief ministerial candidate before the election.
By appointing the new president, the party wants to send a strong signal to Yeddyurappa that it was prepared to say "good-bye" to him.