‘Don’t punish me for BSY perfidy’

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The infighting within the BJP in Karnataka spilled into the capital on Tuesday when a seething former chief minister, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, openly attacked his predecessor who had trashed his track record on drought relief a day earlier.

Warning that B.S. Yeddyurappa’s speech on mismanagement of drought relief work could provoke the anger of farmers against the government, Mr Gowda said the critique should have been made at a party forum. Squarely laying the blame for the embarrassing cross-voting in the presidential vote at the door of his benefactor turned rival, he said there was every likelihood Yeddyurappa’s group could bring down the government when the Finance Bill is tabled for a vote, this coming Monday.

Sadananda wants to be state unit president
In addition, at a meeting with Bharatiya Janata Party national president Nitin Gadkari, attended by senior leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh, DVS made a strong pitch for the post of state party chief. At the meeting on Tuesday evening, Mr Gowda reminded the group that he was the state unit president when the party came to power in 2008 and had a following among OBC, SC and ST MLAs. “No need to worry about Lingayat votes as we have Jagadish Shettar, a Lingayat at the helm of affairs. A combination of leaders could work together to bring the party back to power,” sources close to him reported he said. Mr Gadkari reportedly assured Mr Gowda he would be accommodated at the national level. The meeting with the BJP leaders was at his behest, the former CM said.