Bangalore, June 3: Several BJP legislators are said to have openly blamed differences among its leaders for the party’s debacle in the Assembly polls, at the legislature party meeting on Monday. Some even pressured the party to bring back B S Yeddyurappa to the party fold.
The legislators are learnt to have told the party top brass seated on the dais, including State party president Pralhad Joshi, former chief ministers Jagadish Shettar, D V Sadananda Gowda and national general secretary H N Ananth Kumar that the electorate had sounded several warning bells during the last five years that infighting at the cost of good governance would not be tolerated.
However, the leaders had failed to rectify themselves and the same had cost the party dear. The BJP not only lost power due to its poor performance, but had to bear the humiliation of not even getting the position of the principal opposition party in the Lower House.
It is learnt that MLC G Madhusudan was the first to quiz the seniors as to why there was no introspection meeting till date. He asked whether they were afraid of facing the legislators or hearing bitter words.
When BJP State president Pralhad Joshi tried to explain that the State unit was waiting for the Central leaders’ instruction to hold the meeting, Madhusudan asked whether it was not the duty of the State leaders to hear the legislators, before attending the national executive meeting to be held in Goa from June 7. MLAs Aravind Limbavali and K G Bopaiah were also among those who said an introspection meeting should have taken place.
Madhusudan said that a majority of the State legislators were in favour of Narendra Modi being projected as the party’s prime ministerial candidate and the same should be conveyed to the national leaders. Many endorsed his view. He is understood to have said that the party may issue a notice to him for his candid expression of views.
Joshi did not have any reply to the questions posed by the legislators. He just said that past was past and that the party should work towards its revival in time for the LS polls. Later, briefing reporters, Joshi said the party would hold a meeting of its district presidents and office bearers on June 6 in Bangalore to chalk out strategies for the revival of the party. Preparations for the Lok Sabha polls would start in the third week of June, after the national executive meeting, he said.
The party would fight some of the arbitrary decisions of the Congress government, like setting aside the previous regime’s decision to carve out 40 new taluks, both outside and inside the legislature.
