Who has gained, the native or the migrant?
The ‘native or migrant syndrome’ which had earlier plagued the Congress, seems to have affected the BJP too. With the nine-month-old BJP government headed by D.V. Sadanananda Gowda still dilly-dallying on the issue of cabinet expansion, BJP old-timers who grew up in the party are now complaining that they are been neglected because of the preference for new entrants. Recently, about 10 BJP members, who rose from the party ranks, held a meeting and decided to write to party higher-ups over ensuring representation to them in the Cabinet. These include legislators like Sogadu Shivanna, Appacchu Ranjan, C.T. Ravi, Appu Pattana Shetty and others.
“It was an informal meeting, but we are taking the issue very seriously. We are writing a letter to Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, party president K.S. Eshwarappa, party national general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan and party national president Nitin Gadkari. We are not saying that all the vacant ministerial slots should be given to us. We want the chief minister to expand his cabinet and make sure people who have worked for the party from day one are given their due,’’ said one of the legislators who participated the meeting.
When Mr Gowda took over as chief minister last August, there were 22 members in the cabinet. In the only expansion so far, he has inducted five members into the cabinet. Of them, Dr V S Acharya passed away, while three ministers had to resign following the porn video scandal. “The issue here is the raw deal for native BJP members. Of the 23 ministers, 12 are migrants and were part of Operation Lotus. They hold key portfolios. We have original BJP members, who have won elections two to four times, but are still not ministers. As disciplined party members, we have waited for too long. Now it is time that we too got our due,’’ a leader pointed out.