BELAGAVI: With political developments ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections picking up pace, Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi said that the BJP MLAs in the state had conveyed their choice of candidate to the party top brass.
Playing down the ongoing tussle between former MP Ramesh Katti and sitting member Prabhakar Kore, Jarkiholi said the party leaders are not divided on the candidature and no one lobbied for the ticket either.
On the recent meeting held by Ramesh Katti and his brother Umesh in Bengaluru, which was attended by several party MLAs, Jarkiholi said they had only invited the lawmakers for dinner and there was nothing political about it.
According to sources, Jarkiholi has strongly backed Ramesh Katti while a group of legislators, led by Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi, is in support of Kore. The large number of Lingayat BJP MLAs in Mumbai-Karnataka are divided between Kore and Katti’s groups even as the party leadership is trying to get them together to pick a consensus candidate. The Katti brothers, who feel they could suffer further political setback if they are continued to be ignored, are said to be exerting pressure on the party to get either a berth in the cabinet for Umesh or an RS ticket for Ramesh.