News Analysis India

Tag: vijayendra

  • Yediyurappa shows clout as Jagdish Shettar returns to BJP

    Former chief minister Jagadish Shettar returned to the BJP on Thursday, months after quitting BJP. Shettar’s return is seen as an indication of Yediyurappa and son, Karnataka unit president Vijayendra, reestablishing their hold over the party, after the humiliating defeat BJP suffered in the May assembly polls.

    Shettar joined BJP in the presence of Union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Yediyurappa and Vijayendra. Yediyurappa, also a BJP Parliamentary Board member, said the party had got a boost with Shettar’s return.

    Shettar who kept a low profile in the Congress, resigned from the primary membership of the party and legislative council membership. There was speculation that BJP may field him in one of the seats in the Mumbai-Karnataka region for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.The development seemed to have caught Congress leaders by surprise. Chief minister Siddaramaiah told the media in Virajpet that his party treated the veteran with respect, and Shettar had told him he was not going back to the party which humiliated him. KPCC president DK Shivakumar said Shettar had told him even on Wednesday that he was not going back. Shivakumar later met another former BJP leader, Laxman Savadi and expressed confidence that no other leader would quit the Congress. Savadi clarified that he would not be join BJP. “Shettar made it clear that his resignation was personal, and he is doing politics according to his wishes,” he said.

    Shettar and Savadi had joined Congress when BJP denied them MLA tickets. Shettar lost the Hubli-Dharwad seat, but Savadi won from Athani. The two Lingayat leaders from North Karnataka may have provided Congress a boost in the support from the community during assembly polls.

  • siddaramaiah: ‘Don’t we have our own Ram temples in Karnataka?,’ CM Siddaramaiah asks declining to sponsor trips to Ayodhya

    Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday denied any plans from the government to sponsor devotees to Ayodhya even as the BJP is rolling out mega plans to send them in large numbers to the holy site in Uttar Pradesh.

    “Don’t we have our own Ram Mandirs in Karnataka? Aren’t the temples in our own villages those of Lord Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Anjaneya?” the CM retorted when the media queried if the government had any plans to send people from the state for a visit to Ayodhya. His comments came in response to a question about BJP’s target to send three crore people to Ayodhya over the next three months.

    The BJP was indulging in politics over Rama, Siddaramaiah said, and added that the Congress worshipped the Rama that Mahatma Gandhi adored, not the BJP version of Rama.The BJP Karnataka unit has targeted to send more than 35,000 persons from all 224 assembly constituencies in the state to Ayodhya from January 31 to March 25. The trip will be for six days. The teams will include BJP workers and interested members of the public.

    BJP state president BY Vijayendra said 25 special trains have been arranged for the purpose. The participants will get an ID card with a QR code.

    The teams will leave in batches and one team will leave every second day.The party has fixed a fee of Rs 3000 per head. In some constituencies, however, local leaders are collecting below what the party has fixed as they will bear part of the cost. President of one mandal in Bengaluru, said they are collecting only Rs 1000 as a token payment. “We will bear the rest of the expenditure to be incurred on food, transportation and accommodation,” he said.