With only hours to go before the crucial BJP Legislature Party meet to pick a new chief minister of Karnataka, RSS and BJP leaders have sounded out state law minister Suresh Kumar on whether he will be amenable to being their consensus candidate.

Top RSS sources said they were determined to avoid a secret ballot at any cost and the showdown that it could entail during the legislature party meeting on Wednesday, preferring to arrive at a third candidate acceptable to all.
Two senior party leaders met Mr Kumar separately to explore the possibility of a third candidate, sources explained. This came even as beleaguered caretaker chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa travelled to Tumkur to appeal to the Siddagannga Math seer, Shivakumar Swami, to intercede on his behalf and save him and his sons and son-in-law from prosecution. In return, he is reported to have agreed to back his Lingayat rival, Mr Jagadish Shettar, as CM. Giving credence to these reports was the arrival of Mr Shettar at the Tumkur math after he was summoned by the seer.
However the RSS and BJP were taking no chances. Sources said they would press for the third option if the party faced the threat of a split.
Party sources justified the third choice experiment by pointing to its success in Gujarat. Mr Narendra Modi was made chief minister over the heads of warring party stalwarts Shankersinh Vaghela and Keshubhai Patel.
Sources in the party said Mr Suresh Kumar was their preferred choice for CM while former state home minister V.S. Acharya came a close second. Both men enjoy a “clean” reputation.
The emissaries also met Dr Acharya, sources said.
The legislature party meeting will be held at a private hotel at 11 am. As Mr Yeddyurappa worked through the day to safeguard his followers from being poached by arch-rival Ananth Kumar, issuing a diktat to his legislators not to accept any calls from the rival camp, Mr Kumar was using the same Lingayat card employed by Mr Yeddyurappa to keep himself in power. His emissaries are said to have appealed to BSY’s Lingayat legislators not to block the appointment of Mr Shettar, another Lingayat, citing the support of two powerful seers for the majority community on Tuesday. The public relations department of the Kumar camp, meanwhile, stepped up pace, sending out pictures of Mr Shettar looking distinctly chief-ministerial. The BJP-RSS attempt to pick a leader who can retain the party vote base, which includes Lingayat votes, has so far stymied Mr Kumar’s own efforts at becoming CM as he belongs to the Brahmin community. After arriving in Bengaluru late in the night, BJP national leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh began closed-door talks with top RSS leaders. Sources said that if the party was compelled to consider the nuances of the electoral politics of the state, a Lingayat leader from Hubli, Mr Shettar, who on Tuesday received the support of powerful Lingayat maths across the state, may have a good chance to succeed Mr Yeddyurappa.
But Mr Kumar, who is said to have worked the levers to consolidate support in the run-up to Wednesday’s vote, has pushed for a secret ballot. The latest reports indicate that both Mr Singh and Mr Jaitley were persuaded that Mr Kumar’s proposal to select a leader through secret ballot would sound the death knell for the party as it would formalise the two camps, one led by Mr Yeddyurappa and the other by Mr Ananth Kumar, and eventually lead to a split, sources said.
Meanwhile, after hosting a tea for senior IAS and IPS officers, Mr Yeddyurappa told reporters he was confident he would come out clean in six months. “After six months I will become CM again,” he said. This statement is being interpreted in party circles as Mr Yeddyurappa backing either Mr Shettar or a third candidate so that he can return to power if he clears himself of corruption charges, sources added.