An eleventh hour effort by the top brass of the Karnataka unit of the BJP to mollify former minister B. Sreeramulu and persuade him to contest the bypoll to Bellary (ST) Assembly constituency as the party’s nominee came a cropper on Thursday night.
Sources in the party said, though the leaders made some headway with the Valmiki strongman during the first round of negotiations, the negotiations failed leaving them with little choice than pick partyman Gadhi Lingappa as the candidate. The top brass was ready to fly to Bellary on Friday and accompany Mr Sreeramulu to the returning officer’s office to hand over a fresh set of nomination papers as the party nominee, but the rapprochement did not come through. “The party was not ready to give up on the Valmiki community strongman as he has an impressive support base in at least four districts of north-Karnataka. Therefore, the leaders persuaded him to come to Bengaluru for discussions,” the sources added.
Sources close to Mr Sreeramulu said though the fiery leader was reluctant to change his mind, his aides persuaded him to go to negotiation table after going through the results of a survey conducted by a private agency in his home constituency. The survey conducted last week gave them the jitters with Lingayats indicating that they would vote against him on grounds that he was not accessible to them. Ditto with the Kurubas. Therefore, he was keen to return to the fold of BJP, the sources said.
On reaching Bengaluru, Mr Sreeramulu reportedly held talks with former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, state unit chief K.S. Eshwarappa and chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda. He had a set of demands but the leaders assured him that all of them would be considered after the bypoll.