BENGALURU: The BJP core committee will meet on Monday evening to take up the issue of shortlisting names for the Legislative Council elections. The frontrunners are those who moved to the BJP from the Congress-JDS alliance and helped the party form the government -- H Vishwanath, MTB Nagaraj, R Shankar.
Former JDS president and Hunsur MLA H Vishwanath, and former Cabinet minister and Hoskote MLA MTB Nagaraj had both lost the Assembly by-elections held in December 2019, necessitated after they moved to the BJP. Former minister and Ranebennur MLA R Shankar had heeded the BJP decision and not contested the bypoll.
Among the names from the BJP are those of Vokkaliga strongman CP Yogeshwara, who helped the party form the government, Nirmal Kumar Surana, considered to be resourceful for the party, and spokesman Go Madhusudhan.
The core committee is meeting after the Rajya Sabha embarrassment last week, where none of the names it had suggested were considered by the national leadership. Party leaders have been maintaining an embarrassed silence on the issue ever since.
Party sources said the BJP core committee, which includes Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, state unit President Nalin Kumar Kateel, minister CT Ravi, senior minister KS Eshwarappa, among others, were surprised when the party high command rejected all the five names proposed --Prabhakar Kore, Prakash Shetty, Ramesh Katti, Ma Nagaraj and Nirmal Kumar Surana.
The high command had offered no reason as to why these names were rejected. Meanwhile, caste and regional representation remains important for the remaining seats. BJP is sure to get 9 out of 12 seats in the MLC quota, and is making careful plans to bag all four seats in the next round of elections to be held later, for the Teachers and Graduates constituencies.The BJP is looking to get four members elected and five members nominated, with a 223-seat Assembly, including one nominated member.
Vishwanath hits back at DyCM
Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan’s recent comment that “no promise was made” about accommodating Congress-JDS alliance rebel MLAs Adagur Vishwanath and MTB Nagaraj in the Legislative Council, has not gone down well with the aspirants. It may be recalled that Vishwanath had lost from Hunsur and MTB Nagaraj lost from Hoskote in the bypolls, and both were hoping to be nominated as BJP members in the Council.
Vishwanath on Sunday hit back at Narayan, asking, “Through whose contribution did Dr Ashwath Narayan become DyCM? How can he comment about what transpired between the CM and us, and the understanding we had? Ashwath Narayan was also with us in Mumbai, but we did not hold any meeting with him.” We have no doubt that Yediyurappa will keep his word, Vishwanath told TNIE.