BENGALURU: Two days after receiving the show-cause notice from the BJP Central Disciplinary Committee, senior party MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal met the committee’s member secretary, Om Pathak, in New Delhi on Wednesday.
“I have explained everything (to Pathak), and he has told me to continue the fight in the Waqf row. We were appreciated for our fight,” Yatnal said after the hour-long meeting.
The committee had issued the notice to Yatnal, a former Union Minister, for his “tirade against the party’s state leadership and defiance of party directives.” Yatnal is a strong critic of BJP veteran BS Yediyurappa and his family, especially state party chief BY Vijayendra.
Yatnal said that Pathak told him to be calm and advised him not to speak on party matters before the media and instead inform party leaders.
Earlier in the day, Yatnal spoke to the media, where he said he has prepared a detailed 6-page reply. “I have not made any complaint or statement against the party, but only against BS Yediyurappa and his family members. I have neither spoken about national nor state leaders. I still abide by what I say,” Yatnal, MLA for Vijayapura City, said.
Later, Yatnal said the committee member told him that “he has a good future.”
“I am going to attend the Joint Parliamentary Committee meeting on Thursday and return to Bengaluru,’’ Yatnal said.
“We are not fools to quit the party. We believe in national ideology. BJP is our hope with a pro-Hindu (thought) and there is no way we are going to quit the party. We trust our party,’’ Yatnal said.
On BY Vijayendra commencing his Waqf campaign from Bidar, Yatnal said, “Let him do... we have already collected the documents.”
Former MLA Kumar Bangarappa, who is part of Yatnal’s team, said that they have visited 10 districts.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, R Ashoka, met BJP national president JP Nadda in Delhi. Ashoka said that the Yatnal issue is before the party top brass. “The party high command will take a decision that will bring joy to our party workers. We will oblige to whatever they say,” he said.
Yatnal, along with a few senior BJP leaders, including MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, Arvind Limbavali, Mahesh Kumtahalli, and Kumar Bangarappa, had taken out a month-long anti-Waqf march from Bidar to Chamarajanagar. The march started on November 25 and will conclude on December 25.