BJP leadership continues to grapple with Karnataka crisis

New Delhi, Nov 4 : The BJP leadership continued its exercise of soliciting views of its leaders and MLAs on the Karnataka issue even as the party was groping for a solution and pull its first ever Government in south of Vindhyas out of the problem.

The crisis has prolonged for over ten days with the defiant Reddy brothers claiming the support of 60 out of 118 BJP MLAs. The party has deputed its senior leader Arun Jaitley to bring truce between the rebels and loyalists of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who is expected to arrive here late tonight.

Sources said the chief minister had no engagements upon his arrival and may work out his plans in Delhi late tonight. Things may start moving only after the Mr Yeddyurappa comes to Delhi, informed sources said.

Interacting with newspersons, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the party was in process of reconciling the differences between the two groups and the party would let the media know the developments as and when a solution was found.

Meanwhile, a group of ten MLAs, including state Power Minister K S Eswarappa, former minister D H Shankaramurthy and Mr Ramadas, called on top party leaders L K Advani, BJP General Secretary Ramlal, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj and Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, seeking an early solution in the interest of the Karnataka BJP and its first BJP government.

''We are not loyalists or rebels but are interested only in protecting its image when all the heads and shoulders should be used for providing succour to the flood affected millions of people in Krishna basin,'' Mr Ramadas told UNI after the meeting.

In a related development, a large delegation of Congress leaders from Karnataka met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee seeking generous help for the flood affected millions in the state. ''We did not discuss political issues but confined ourselves to Centre rendering help,'' Mr Siddaramaiah said.

Among those who were in the delegation included Law Minister M Veerappa Moily, Labour Minister M Mallikarjuna Kharge and Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa.

Notwithstanding the public spat in the BJP, the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) have maintained conspicuous silence.

Both parties have reasons to hate Mr Yeddyurappa for depleting their numbers of MLAs in their Legislature parties, but they may be certainly having strong motives to be on his side in his fight against the Reddy brothers who have elbowed out almost all the established leaders of the Congress and all other political ilk.

The BJP has 118 MLAs in the House of 224 member assembly followed by 73 of Congress, 26 of JD (S) and six Independents.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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