Vijayendra failed to take dissident groups into confidence, says DV Sadananda Gowda
Bengaluru, Jan 25 (PTI): Senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Saturday said state president B Y Vijayendra had failed to take the dissident groups into confidence.
He also insisted upon a “transparent" election process to appoint the next president of the state who would replace the “ad hoc" president.
In the wake of growing dissidence, Gowda stressed a need for an overhaul in the saffron party.
“We must speak our heart out irrespective of whether people like it or not. The party should benefit from it," the former union minister said in a press conference.
Changing the core committee members is not a solution because that will not ensure the membership of good people, Gowda opined.
“What I feel is that the state president was appointed on an ad hoc basis. Official president will be appointed through the ongoing election process," he said.
“While discharging his duties, the state president has failed to take the dissident groups into confidence. Our failures are fodder for the media today," Gowda noted.
To a question, he said his focus was not on who should be the state president or district level president.
“Only a transparent election of the president will give strength to the party," the former union minister said.
According to him, groupism has spread its tentacles at the grassroot level, which should be treated first and other things come next.
Gowda’s statement dealt yet another blow to Vijayendra who is already under attack by the Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal and his faction comprising Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, former MLA Kumar Bangarappa and several others.
Patil is up in arms against Vijayendra and his father and former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa. He has alleged that the father-son duo are corrupt and are into ‘adjustment politics’ with the ruling Congress.
Term ‘adjustment politics’, Patil means that there is a secret pact between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah led Congress government and the BJP state level leadership to cover up corruption cases against each other.
Also, former minister B Sriramulu threatened to quit the party owing to the allegation made in the core committee recently.
According to Sriramulu, he was told that he did little during the Sandur assembly bye-election leading to the party’s defeat at the hands of Congress candidate E Annapurna.
The party is also losing its grip in Ballari, which has been its stranglehold for more than two decades, BJP sources said.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
