BENGALURU: As Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa strives hard to convince the BJP central leadership to allot ministerial berths for the ‘rebel winners’, it’s the rebel losers who find themselves in a Catch-22 situation.
They are the great gamblers who lost the game of dice, and they know it. Former sitting minister MTB Nagaraj and then JDS party president Adagur H Vishwanath, who risked their all in the high-stakes political game, could just fade into insignificance.
They propped up the Yediyurappa government, yet the chief minister hasn’t indicated that he will do anything about inducting the losers into his cabinet. Nagaraj gave up his position as a cabinet minister in the coalition government, and Vishwanath his post of JDS party president.
Vishwanath’s desire was to be a minister when he gave up his position and resigned as MLA. But in the following months, the Kuruba leader was reduced to an insignificant player in the state’s political drama. A leader with over 44 years of political experience, the man who became MLA before Siddaramaiah and Yediyurappa, resisted the idea of a career fade out.
He told TNIE, “It was because of my joining them that the rebellion of the 17 MLAs to break away from the coalition assumed legitimacy.’" Vishwanath sounds pained when recalling that the switchover of the 17 MLAs was spoken of as ‘Marata sale’ and not ‘Horata struggle’. "It was our sacrifice that brought down the government," he said.
Just as Chamarajanagar MP Srinivasa Prasad had said earlier, Ramesh Jarkiholi maintained that all 17 MLAs, including Vishwanath and Nagaraj, have to be accommodated and there was no going back on it.
Asked if he feared that Yediyurappa had betrayed them, Vishwanath said, “In politics, everything is not out in the open, there are some issues which are hidden (antharanga) and are not visible to the outside world.”
In the worst-case scenario, Vishwanath and Nagaraj will be given positions as MLCs in June, and accommodated in the ministry.
While some are saying that the 17 rebels cannot be trusted to be completely loyal to the BJP, and would return to their parent parties after the term of this government, Vishwanath shot back, “We have gone to Keshava Krupa and joined the BJP. Why will we go back?’’
If Savadi can become DCM, I can become minister: AH Vishwanath
MYSURU: "Chief minister BS Yediyurappa should answer why he is denying me a ministerial berth," said former minister AH Vishwanath, further urging the CM to remember that it is because of the BJP came to power in the state.
"If Laxman Savadi, who lost the 2018 assembly elections can be made deputy chief minister, then why are others denied cabinet post based on whether they won or lost election," he said.
Meanwhile, former union minister and BJP MP V Srinivasa Prasad said that CM should immediately consider expansion as the 17 MLAs who left Congress and JDS are losing their patience as CM himself promised them cabinet seats.