TUMAKURU: All may not be well in the Tumakuru district unit of the BJP, as former BJP MLA B Suresh Gowda has accused Law Minister JC Madhuswamy of anti-party activities to help rival party MLAs. “I will write to BJP national president J P Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Madhuswamy has been creating confusion among the electorate over irrigation projects implemented by the BJP government,” he told reporters on Monday.
The minister, who is in charge of Tumakuru district, had reportedly made a statement recently that the Guluru-Hebburu lift irrigation project in Tumakuru Rural Assembly constituency is unscientific, given the amount of the electricity involved to lift water from the Hemavathi river.
Taking note of it, Gowda, who represented the constituency twice and lost in the 2018 Assembly polls, asked Madhuswamy whether the project, implemented by the BJP government when B S Yediyurappa was Chief Minister and Basavaraj Bommai was Water Resources Minister, was a dud. “I will also write to the CM to conduct a probe into execution of the project and expose the facts. Madhuswamy creating confusion will only help rival parties,” he remarked. In a way, Madhuswamy has been targeting Yediyurappa and also Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai, he alleged.
Meanwhile, Gowda’s rival and Tumakuru Rural JDS MLA D C Gowrishankar’s bonhomie with Madhuswamy has also been questioned. The JDS MLA has apparently been heaping praise on the minister quite often for helping in the release of Hemavathi river water to tanks in the region. Madhuswamy had also reportedly made a statement against the release of Hemavathi water to Madaluru tank in Sira taluk, which Yediyurappa had made a poll plank in the Sira bypolls. Sira BJP MLA Dr C M Rajesh Gowda had also faced embarrassment.
According to sources, both Suresh Gowda and Madhuswamy have been engaged in a turf war for some time now. As Gowda had appointed a member from Madhuswamy’s rival camp as president of party’s Chikkanayakanahalli taluk unit, the latter was annoyed. Eventually, Madhuswamy and former minister Sogadu Shivanna managed to get Suresh Gowda eased from the district BJP president’s post. They are now pitching from Hebbaka Ravishankar, also a Lingayath, to take over as district president.