BENGALURU: Former minister CP Yogeshwara, who resigned as BJP MLC on Monday, is likely to join Congress on Wednesday and contest as the party’s official candidate in the Channapatna Assembly bypoll on November 13.
He was insisting on being the NDA candidate from BJP, but the saffron party high command made it clear to him that the seat would be the prerogative of JDS and Union Minister and party state president HD Kumaraswamy would take the final decision.
Kumaraswamy, who won from Channapatna before successfully contesting from the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, wanted to field his son Nikhil and tried to convince Yogeshwara, but to no avail. Kumaraswamy claimed recently that he had offered the JDS ticket from the same constituency to Yogeshwara, but the latter declined.
Yogeshwara, who had kept Congress in the loop of which Kumaraswamy too was aware, held several rounds of talks with Deputy Chief Minister and KPCC president DK Shivakumar’s men who struck the deal, sources said.
Even after resigning as an MLC on Monday, Yogeshwara maintained that he would contest as an independent, but that is unlikely as Congress has made up its mind to field him as its candidate to nail Kumaraswamy. And Yogeshwara too has accepted the deal, the sources added.
The keenness of the Grand Old Party is not without reason as its internal surveys had found that Shivakumar’s brother and defeated Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha candidate DK Suresh would not win from Channapatna if fielded. The surveys are also said to have revealed that Yogeshwara as an independent candidate could secure an average of 40,000 votes.
Yogeshwara, who had won the seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 2013 with the help of Muslim votes, wanted the community’s support this time too, an analyst observed. With the proverbial iron hot, both the DK brothers and Yogeshwara struck a deal to create a win-win situation for themselves, a Congress source said.
JDS strategy
Yogeshwara’s move on Monday put JDS in a Catch-22 situation. The party is now left wondering whether to field Nikhil Kumaraswamy and risk his political future or give the ticket to Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha or local leader Jayamuthu. Kumaraswamy and Nikhil met former prime minister and JDS supremo HD Deve Gowda on Monday evening and chalked out a strategy.