Pradhan: Don’t bring your fight to Delhi

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The action packed day that Thursday was, saw BJP state president K.S. Eshwarappa and the party general secretary in charge of Karnataka Dharmendra Pradhan involved in a war of words over Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda’s decision to take a delegation to Delhi to sort out the leadership imbroglio.

Result: the CM scrapped his proposed visit to Delhi while Mr Pradhan called of his visit to Bengaluru leaving the leadership crisis as unresolved as ever. According to sources, BJP senior leaders advised against the Chief Minister and the party state chief taking a delegation to Delhi as they felt it would send the wrong signals and would only encourage the rival group led by B.S. Yeddyurappa to take the battle for leadership change to the national capital.

The CM camp, which has been lying low for over a week, swung into action on Wednesday evening after perceiving a real threat to the continuance of Mr Gowda as CM. Even party general secretary Ananth Kumar, considered a fierce rival of Yeddyurappa, pitched in to back Mr Gowda.

Gowda loyalists including ministers Govind Karjol and C.P. Yogeshwar decided that the CM should visit Delhi on Thursday and hold discussions with party senior leaders to consolidate his position. Accordingly, Mr Gowda, who had convened a press conference at around 4.30 pm, advanced his press conference to 12.15 pm and declared that he would be heading to Delhi by 2.30 pm. Mr Eshwarappa, who was in Shimoga, was asked to join the delegation to Delhi.

However, while Mr Gowda was addressing the press conference, Mr Eshwarappa received a call from Delhi, asking him to stop the delegation. Soon after the press conference, Mr Gowda left Vidhana Soudha and left for HAL airport to board a chartered flight. Some of his supporters had already reached the airport and were waiting for the Chief Minister when Mr Eshwarappa asked Mr Gowda to return to his residence, Anugraha.

Reason: A heated argument between Mr Pradhan and Mr Eshwarappa, when the BJP chief was asked to to stop the Delhi team led by the CM from boarding the flight. Mr Eshwarappa reciprocated saying he wanted to know why Mr Pradhan was visiting the state without the knowledge of either the CM or party state president.

When Mr Pradhan tried to explain the circumstances, Mr Eshwarappa said he would prefer to know the decision on the leadership issue from seniors like party president Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, L.K. Advani and Arun Jaitley. At this point, Mr Pradhan told Mr Eshwarappa that he had no plans of visiting Bengaluru.