BJP’s observers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley will leave for Bangalore on Monday evening for the BJP Legislature Party meeting to be held on Tuesday morning. D V Sadananda Gowda will formally hand over his resignation to Governor Hansraj Bharadwaj after that. As first reported by Express, Jagadish Shettar will take oath as new Karnataka chief minister on July 11.
Asked if deputy chief ministers would be appointed in the State, BJP president Nitin Gadkari said no decision on the issue has been made. He said the “services of Gowda would be continued to be taken, both at the state level and the national level”.
Sources said Gowda has already been offered the position of the state party president, but he has so far not shown much inclination for the job (he has already held the position in the past). In such an eventuality, Gowda may be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha.
On Sunday, while Gadkari said that no final decision had been made on having deputy chief ministers, sources still didn’t rule out a couple of deputy chief ministers in the state. K S Eeshwarappa and R Ashok are said to be in the running for the two positions.
With the change in the guard in the state - third in the last eleven months - a sordid tale of vicious political feuds and vigorous muscle flexing by former CM B S Yeddyurappa comes to an end. While eleven months ago, Yeddyurappa had to relinquish his chair due to corruption charges against him, he initially lobbied for Gowda to replace him. The logic was simple - Gowda was a Vokkaliga and Yeddyurappa claimed the majority backing among the Lingayats. By having a Lingayat at the helm, Yeddyurappa didn’t want to share the Lingayat pie. However, when Gowda proved that he had a mind of his own, he fell out with his one-time mentor, and then Yeddyurappa began lobbying for Shettar, a fellow Lingayat.
The central BJP succumbed to Yeddyurappa’s strong-arm tactics because it still sees sense in having a Lingayat at the helm in a state that goes to elections next year (the Lingayats have been the BJP’s main support base).
On Sunday, while Gowda expressed his sense of hurt to the party brass, he told the media that “he taken the decision in his stride”. “I am a loyal soldier of the party. I whole-heartedly accept the verdict given by the central leadership. The incoming chief minister will get all cooperation from me,” he said.