Stunt pulled off by L Chandrashekar a lesson for the BJP party

BENGALURU: The stunt which was pulled off by Ramanagara BJP party’s official candidate L Chandrashekar, has left the senior leadership, including state president B S Yeddyurappa in the dangerous position of being sidelined, sooner or later.

By taking the decision of fielding an “outsider” from Ramanagara had backfired on Yeddyurappa and his confidants such as C P Yogeshwar and R Ashoka, the party’s second-rung leadership and anti-Yeddyurappa faction have been strengthened by the embarrassment to take an indirect dig at the state-level decision- makers.

As Eshwarappa in Shivamogga and Shettar in Dharwad made public statements which were doubting the decision maker’s policy of fielding a candidate whose father is a known confidant of Congress strongman D K Shivakumar, the MLA of Chikmagalur and Ravi the party state general secretary took the issue to social media and made a public apology on behalf of the party. In his tweet, Ravi clearly said that the decision to register Chandrashekar was not taken with “consensus” from other office-bearers of the party.

“Ramanagara candidate L Chandrashekar decision to retire from contesting the election is absolutely painful. By believing outsiders we have been deceived. Instead, if we had given an opportunity to one of our own loyal party workers, this situation would not have risen. In this regard, we (BJP) apologise to our party workers and the people,” Ravi said in his tweet.

BJP sources said that the second line of leadership is looking to carve a space of itself. “With Ashoka, Yogeshwara and Yeddyurappa in the crosshairs of the party central leadership, the second line anti-BSY camp is starting to smell blood in the water. It is also to be considered that Ravi and other Vokkaliga leaders in the party are trying to pressure the central leadership into pushing Ashoka and Yogeshwara out of decision making positions.”

Party MLC Lehar Singh said, “At least now the party should have learnt a lesson not to encourage such unethical and immoral defections.”

It is also said that the BJP central leadership may even consider this to be a plausible reason to “ease out” Yeddyurappa with his clan and bring out some fresh achievers into the Karnataka unit. But this is only possible after the 2019 LS polls, as the Lingayat vote bank is the key to the party’s success within the state.