With the Congress backing Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, whose resignation the BJP and other Opposition parties have been demanding over the CAG report on irregularities in the Commonwealth Games preparations, some of the BJP leaders have now started questioning the Central leadership’s decision of “sacrificing” B.S. Yeddyurappa.
It could be mentioned that Mr Yeddyurappa, belonging to the dominant Lingayat community, had to resign from the post of Karnataka chief minister following BJP parliamentary board’s order after he was indicted by the state Lokayukta report on illegal mining issue. These leaders feel the Central leadership should have also backed Mr Yeddyurappa like the Congress is going with Ms Dikshit when charges against her are “more serious in nature” than Mr Yeddyurappa.
Sources disclosed that some of the leaders raised this issue with the BJP top brass and cited the examples of Madan Lal Khurana and Uma Bharti. These leaders contended that the political graph of these former stalwarts plummeted because the party’s central leadership did not support them at their time of political crisis.
“Sheila Dikshit trashed the Shunglu committee report and Congress is questioning CAG’s mandate. While the Shunglu Committee was set up by the PM himself on the CWG issue, CAG report on the issue has details including annexures giving proof of the financial bungling. But look at the way the Congress has come out to protect its leader (Ms Dikshit) while Yeddyurappa was shunted out over an NGO run by his family receiving donation from a business house who happened to have interest in the mining sector.
Yeddyurappa was sacrificed by the party just to have a moral high ground,” said a senior BJP functionary. A section within the party is also angry with the central leadership decision sacking Mr Yeddyurappa as it is of the view that it ended up highlighting the dissidence in the state unit. Newly-elected CM D.V. Sadananda Gowda is considered Mr Yeddyurappa’s confidante.